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THE  INDIVIDUAL 

SOCIETY 


A  Comparison  Between  the  Views  of  the 

Eiilighteninent  and  Those  of  the 

Nineteenth  Century 


cA Thesis 


BY 
DAVIIJ  BEVERlbGE  TOMKINS,  M.  A.,  B.  D. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY 

A  Comparison  Between  the  Views  of  the  Enlightenment 
and  Those  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 


A  THESIS 


BY  • 

DAVID  BEVERIDQE  TOMKINS,  M.  A.,  B.  D. 


Accepted  by  the  Graduate  School  of  New  York  University, 

In  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requiremeots  for  the 

Degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy. 


1914 


To 

MY  WIFE 

WHOSE  HELPFUL  SUGGESTIONS 
WERE  INVALUABLE. 


OUTLINE  OF  THESIS. 
THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY. 

A  COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THE  VIEWS  OF  THE  ENLIGHTEN- 
MENT AND  THOSE  OF  THE   I9TH  CENTURY. 

I.  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MODERN  ETHICS. 

i.  EGOISM  A  MODERN  PROBLEM. 

A.  Grotius.     (1583-1645) 

(1)  Jus   Naturale. 

(2)  Optimistic  and  social  character  of  his  thought. 

B.  Hobbes.     (1588-1679) 

(1)  Egoism  and  pessimism. 

(2)  Dogmatic  view  of  the  "Status  Naturalis." 

(3)  Attempted  proof  of  egoism  and  pessimism. 

(4)  The  error  in  Hobbes'  anthropology. 

(5)  Oppositon  to  Hobbes. 

C.  Cumberland.     (1632-1718) 

(1)  Ideal  of  benevolence. 

(2)  Revision  of  Hobbes'  ethic. 

D.  Shaftesbury.      (1671-1713) 

(1)  Restatement  of  Hobbes'  phychology. 

(2)  Shaftesbury's  view  of  human  nature. 

E.  Mandeville.     (1670-1733) 

(1)  Restatement  of  the  problem. 

(2)  Anticipation  of  Nietzsche. 

(3)  Refutation  of  Mandeville's  egoism, 

F.  Hutcheson.     (1694-1752) 

(1)  Ideal  of  disinterested  judgment. 

(2)  Reappearance  of  the  social. 

G.  Butler.     (1692-1752) 

Modified  egoism. 

(3) 


4  Outline  of  Thesis 

2.  THE  CULMINATION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  IN  THE 
i8TH  CENTURY. 

A.  Hume.     (1711-1776) 

(1)  Opposition  to  Hobbes'  "Statu  Naturali." 

(2)  Ideal  of  sympathy.  > 

B.  Smith.     (1723-1790) 

(1)  Social  theory  of  the  moral  sentiments. 

(2)  The  ethics  of  sympathy — propriety,  merit,  duty. 

(3)  Anticipation  of  Darwin. 

II.  BEGINNINGS  OF  SOCIAL  ETHICS. 

i.  RISE  OF  THE  SOCIAL. 

A.  Comte.     (1789-1857) 

(1)  Positivism  and  socialism. 

(2)  Criticism  of  the  enlightenment. 

B.  Darwin.     (1809-1882) 

Evolutionary  ethics. 

C.  Stephen.     (1832-19—) 

Organic  conception  of  society. 

D.  Spencer.     (1820-1903) 

(1)  Repudiation  of  atomic  theory. 

(2)  Society  as   evolved. 

(3)  His  reconciliation  of  egoism  and  altruism — in  present 

society;  in  ideal  society. 

III.  DISCUSSION  AND  CRITICISM. 

(1)  Sharp  distinction  between   i8th  and   I9th  centuries' 

views  of  society. 

(2)  Evolutionary  ethics  criticised. 

(3)  Revolt  against  sociaj  order. 

(4)  Attempted  synthesis  of  the  ego  and  its  world. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGES. 

INTRODUCTION:— Aim  of  the  thesis  historico- 
critical.  Individualistic  theories  of  the 
1 8th  century  contrasted  with  organic  con- 
ception of  iQth  century.  No  problem  of 
ego  and  alter  in  ancient  ethics.  The  in- 
fluence upon  Hobbes  of  "De  Jure  Belli  et 
Pads."  Thesis  attempts  to  bring  out 
historical  fact  that  the  enlightenment  pro- 
ceeded from  the  individual  to  the  social, 
the  I Qth  century  from  the  social  to  the  in- 
dividual. Two  periods  undergo  complete 
transmutation  and  transvaluation I3~I5 

I.  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MODERN  ETH- 
ICS. 

i.  EGOISM  A  MODERN  PROBLEM. 

A.  Grotius.    "Jus  Naturale."    Questions  raised 

by  the  "De  Jure  Belli  et  Pads"  justifies 
study  of  Grotius. 

(1)  "Jus  Naturale" — fundamental  principle  of 
human  nature.     "Natural   Rights"  not  a 
human   invention   nor   a   Divine   creation. 
"Jus  Naturale"  independent  even  of  God. 

(2)  The  optimistic  and  social  character  of  the 
Grotian     ethics.      Utility     an     impossible 
source  of  "Jus  Naturale."     The  basis  of 
"Rights,"   man's    social   nature.     Grotian 
conception  of  "Status  Naturalis"  optimistic 
and  social.    A  priori  deductions  substanti- 
ated by  a  posteriori  tests.    Problem  of  ego 

and  alter  begins  with  Hobbes 17-20 

B.  Hobbes.    "Status  Naturalis"  unsocial,  selfish. 

This  view  of  human  nature  due,  in  part, 
to  temperamentality  and  social  unrest. 

(5) 


Contents 

(1)  Egoism,  and    pessimism   of    the    Hobbist 
ethics. 

(a)  Egoism.  The  ego  and  its  private  affec- 
tions the  basis  of  human  life.     Self-love 
the  motive  of  all  action. 

(b)  Pessimism.     The  Hobbist  conception 
of  the  "Status  Naturalis"  led  to  pessimism. 
The  state  of  nature  a  state  of  war  of  all 
against   all,    "Might"   not    "Right"    rules. 
Life  of  man  solitary,  brutish,  short. 

(2)  Attempted  proof  of  egoism  and  pessimism. 
The  attitude  of  suspicion  which  men  sus- 
tain to  each  other  in  a  civil  state,  is  his 
proof  of  man's  unsocial  and  selfish  nature 
in  the  "Statu  Naturali." 

(3)  Dogmatic    view    of    "Status    Naturalis." 
Right  or  wrong  have  no  meaning  in  a  state 
of  nature.     Morality  a  human  invention. 
Nothing  good   or   evil   per  se.     Compact, 
starting    point    of    ethics    and    norm    of 
justice. 

(4)  The  error   in   the   Hobbist   anthropology. 
The  Hobbist  error  due  to  a  wrong  con- 
ception of  man's  natural  state.    Ethnologi- 
cal proof  of  the  fallacious  assumption  of 
the  Hobbist  anthropology. 

(5)  Opposition    to    the    Hobbist    "Statu    Na- 
turali."     Relarivistic    ethics    attacked    by 
rational   intuitionism.     Opposition  of   the 
"Cambridge     Platonists."      Morality     im- 
mutable   and   eternal.     Exclusive   egoism 
opposed  by  other   forms  of  intuitionism. 

C.  Cumberland.  Exclusive  egoism  refuted, 
(i)  Ideal  of  benevolence.  The  given  condi- 
tion of  humanity  social.  The  instinct  of 
benevolence  found  in  both  man  and  beast. 
Universal  law  of  benevolence  basis  of 
human  society.  God  and  not  man  source 


Contents  7 

of  the  good.  Relative  ethics  untenable. 
Good  and  evil  anterior  to  the  compact. 
(2)  Revision  of  the  Hobbist  ethics.  Social 
impulses,  point  of  contact  between  ego  and 
alter.  End  of  morality,  not  individual 
good  but  common  welfare.  In  making 
contents  of  moral  law  refer  directly  to 
good  of  the  whole  and  only  indirectly  to 
good  of  individual,  Cumberland  completely 
revises  the  Hobbist  ethics.  Cumberland, 
father  of  utilitarian  ethics.  Many  modern 
phrases  used  by  him,  such  as  rectitude, 
conscience,  social  21-36 

D.  Shaftesbury.     Enlargement  of  the  social  in- 

stinct in  man.  Shaftesbury's  treatment  of 
social  problems,  psychological  and  biologi- 
cal questions,  modern. 

(1)  Restatement   of   the   Hobbist  psychology. 
Shaftesbury's    refutation    of   the   Hobbist 
psychology.     He  finds  three  elements  in 
man  where  Hobbes  found  only  one, — self- 
love, — and  classifies  them  as   (a)   natural 
affections,  (b)  private  affections,   (c)  un- 
natural   affections.      Morality    neither    a 
human   invention   nor   a  Divine   creation, 
but    coextensive    with    human    existence. 
The  blending  of   the  egoistic  and   social 
instincts,  productive  of  the  highest  good. 

(2)  Shaftesbury's  view  of  human  nature.    Re- 
pudiation of  the  Hobbist  "Status  Natural- 
is."     A  social  motive  in  the  human  will. 
Man    designed    by    nature     for    society. 
Shaftesbury's  view  of  human  nature  antip- 
odal to  that  of  Hobbes 37-38 

E.  Mandeinlle. 

(i)  Restatement  of  the  problem.  Rehabilita- 
tion of  the  egoistic  argument.  Self-love 
the  spring  of  human  action.  Vice  the 


8  Contents 

source  of  prosperity.  Virtue  a  mere  device. 
Relativistic  conception  of  the  good.  Noth- 
ing good  or  evil  per  se.  Difference  be- 
tween the  egoism  of  Hobbes  and  that  of 
Mandeville. 

(2)  Mandeville's    anticipation    of    Nietzsche. 
Nietzsche's   transvaluation   of   values   an- 
ticipated   in    Mandeville's    conception    of 
virtue.     The  judgment  good  for  both,  is 
created  by  the  powerful   and   wise  who 
impose  it  upon  the  weak.     Both  moralists 
set  up  an  immoralistic  ideal.    Self-realiza- 
tion hindered  by  society 39-46 

(3)  Refutation  of  Mandeville's  egoism.    Law's 
refutation  of  Mandeville's  relativism.  God 
the  source  of  the  moral  concept.    Brown's 
opposition  to  Mandeville's  ethics.     Virtue 
and    vice,    permanent    realities.     Berkeley 
assails  the  unsound  economical  theories  of 
Mandeville,  and  his  relativistic  ethics.... 

F.  Hutcheson.    Attack  directed  against  Mande- 

ville's exclusive  egoism. 

(1)  Ideal    of    disinterested    judgment.     The 
social    argument    advanced,    placed    upon 
intellectualistic  basis.     A  social  motive  in 
the  will,  and  social  principle  of  judgment 
in  the  intellect  affirmed.     A  refutation  of 
Mandeville's  egoism.    Man  capable  of  dis- 
interested moral  acts. 

(2)  The  reappearance  of  the  social.   The  anti- 
social  view    of    Hobbes    and    Mandeville 
repudiated.    Human  nature  capable  of  ris- 
ing above  interest 47-52 

G.  Butler.     Modifed   egoism.     The   social   in- 

stincts of  man  stronger  than  his  egoistic 
instincts.  Reasonable  self-love  a  neces- 
sity for  selfhood.  Benevolence  and  self- 
love  necessary  for  the  highest  good .... 


Contents  9 

2.  THE  CULMINATION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  IN  THE 
i8TH  CENTURY. 

A.  Hume.     Culmination    of    anti-social    in   the 

individual.  Negation  of  anti-social  in  the 
race.  Comparison  between  "Treatise"  and 
'"'Inquiry."  The  denial  of  egoism  as  the 
only  motive  of  the  will. 

(1)  Opposition  to  the  Hobbist  "Statu  Natur- 
ali."    The  Hobbist  state  of  nature  a  phil- 
osophical  fiction.     The   natural   state  of 
man  social. 

(2)  Ideal  of  sympathy.    The  objective  side  of 
sympathy  regarded  by  Hume.    The  human 
will   capable  of   disinterested  moral   acts. 
Hume's  attempt  to  rise  above  individual- 
istic conceptions  of  his  age.    The  corporate 
life  of  society  grasped,  though  feebly,  by 

Hume.    Anticipation  of  Comte 53-65 

B.  Smith.    Contrast  between  egoism  of  "Wealth 

of  Nations"  and  altruism  of  "Moral  Senti- 
ment." 

(1)  The  social  theory  of  the  "Moral  Senti- 
ment."     Smith's    indebtedness    to   Hume. 
Sympathy  the  basis  of  our  benevolent  and 
social  nature.     Sympathy  limited  by  sense 
of  propriety. 

(2)  The  ethics  of  Sympathy.     Subjective  and 
objective    side    of    sympathy.      Sympathy 
basis  of  moral  judgments.  Sympathy  point 
of  contact  between  ego  and  alter.     The 
egoistic  psychology  of  Hobbes  refuted. 
Anticipation  of  Darwin's  theory  of  con- 
science.     Conscience    a    sense    of    man's 
agreement  or  disagreement  with  humanity. 
Memory  and  shame  principle  constituents 

of  conscience 66-72 


io  Contents 

II.  BEGINNINGS  OF  SOCIAL  ETHICS. 

i.  RISE  OF  THE  SOCIAL. 

The  atomic  theories  of  the  enlightenment 
repudiated.  Society  an  organism. 

A.  Comte.     Historical  continuity  of  the  race. 

The  1 8th  century  problem  of  relating  in- 
dividual to  society,  no  problem  for  iQth 
century.  Man  always  part  of  social  en- 
vironment. 

(1)  Positivism  and  socialism.    The  law  of  the 
three  stages.     Predominance  of  social  en- 
dangers selfhood.     Spiritual  freedom  for 
ego. 

(2)  Comte's    criticism   of    the    enlightenment. 
Individualism  untenable.     Society  not  pro- 
duct of  utility.     Social  spontaneity.. ...... 

B.  Darwin.     Evolutionary  ethics.     Man  and  his 

environment  inseparable.  Reality  not 
found  in  individual  alone.  Darwin's  in- 
consistent view  of  life  criticised 

C.  Stephen.     Atomic  theory  of  enlightenment 

irrational.  The  true  point  of  view  not 
individual  but  social.  Society  a  social 
organism  73-84 

D.  Spencer.     Organic  conception  of  society. 

(1)  Society   as   evolved.     Atomic   theory   re- 
pudiated.   Human  race  organically  related. 
The  self  of  the  i8th  century  an  abstrac- 
tion. 

(2)  Reconciliation    between    egoism    and    al- 
truism.    Spencer's  criticism  of  intuitional 
and  hedonic   ethics.     Man  dominated  by 
egoistic  and  altruistic  impulses.    Harmony 
of    both    through    compromise.      Spencer 
seeks  selfhood  in  absolute  ethics.     Com- 
parison between  Hobbes  and  Spencer. . . .  85-89 


Contents  1 1 

III.  DISCUSSION  AND  CRITICISM. 

Sharp  distinction  between  the  i8th  and 
iQth  centuries'  views  of  society.  The 
former  seeks  reality  in  the  individual  alone, 
the  latter  in  totality  of  race.  Indebted- 
ness to  evolution  for  emphasis  upon  his- 
torical continuity  of  race.  Criticism  of 
evolutionary  ethics.  The  ego  robbed  of 
individuality  and  moral  content.  Man's 
inner  nature  ignored.  Voice  of  tribal  self 
inadequate  explanation  of  inner  compul- 
sion. Man's  refusal  to  be  a  mere  eddy  in 
stream.  Revolt  against  the  social  order. 
Attempt  to  get  back  to  ego  at  any  cost. 
The  1 9th  century  individualists  criticised. 
Society  a  necessity  for  self-realization. 
Attempted  synthesis  of  ego  and  its  world.  9°~99 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  101-104 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  SOCIETY. 

A  COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THE  VIEWS  OF  THE  ENLIGHTEN- 
MENT AND  THOSE  OF  THE    I9TH  CENTURY. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The  aim  of  this  thesis  is  historico-critical.  It  seeks  to  show 
how  widely  the  moralists  of  the  enlightenment  differed  from  the 
ethical  writers  of  the  iQth  century  in  their  conception  of  the 
individual  and  his  relation  to  society. 

It  has  not  been  thought  necessary  to  refer  to  the  ethical  views 
of  either  the  ancient  or  mediaeval  moralists,  because  for  them 
there  was  no  problem  of  alter  and  ego,  at  least  not  in  the  sense, 
in  which  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  and  I9th  centuries  were 
confronted  with  it.  To  the  ancient  moralist  man  was  a  political 
animal;  he  was  never  thought  of  except  as  a  part  of  the  state, 
indeed,  it  was  that  which  gave  him  value  and  worth.  The  Greek 
could  no  more  think  of  an  individual  existing  apart  from  society, 
than  he  could  think  of  an  arm  existing  apart  from  the  body. 
Artistotle  declared  that  one  who  is  independent  of  society  is 
either  a  god  or  a  beast ;  and  he  frequently  employs  the  metaphor 
of  an  organism  to  illustrate  the  relation  in  which  man  stood  to 
society,1  the  family  was  regarded  by  him  as  the  fundamental 
unit  of  all  social  life.  For  Plato,  as  for  Aristotle,  the  social  state 
was  prior  to  the  individual,  and  was  necessary  for  the  fullest 
development  of  his  nature  as  a  social  being.  It  never  occurred 
to  the  ancient  moralist  to  think  of  the  individual  except  as  * 
member  of  a  social  state;  nor  do  we  find  even  the  mediaeval 
thinker  much  concerned  about  the  individual  and  society.  It  is 
not,  indeed,  until  we  come  to  the  i8th  century  that  we  are  seri- 
ously confronted  with  the  problem  of  ego  and  alter;  with  the 
coming  of  Hobbes,  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  two  very 
different  views  of  moral  conduct. 


i.  See  his  "Politics,"  1 :2,  Jowett's  trans. 

(13) 


14  The  Individual  and  Society 

The  thesis,  which  would  logically  begin  with  Hobbes,  is  in- 
troduced by  a  study  of  the  social  nature  of  Grotius'  "De  Jure 
Belli  et  Pads,"  because  of  its  negative  influence  upon  the  thought 
of  Hobbes,  who  swung,  as  Sidgwick  says,  to  the  opposite  view 
of  human  nature,  regarding  it  as  minus  all  social  impulses.  Hobbes 
starts  with  the  ego  as  the  only  point  of  reality,  and  bases  human 
life  upon  the  individual  and  his  private  affections,  as  a  pyramid 
resting  upon  its  apex;  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  century,  who 
opposed  his  exclusive  egoism,  seek  to  reverse  the  argument  and 
base  life  upon  the  social,  with  the  self  as  the  apex;  thus  they 
endeavor  to  relate  the  ego  to  the  alter,  not  through  fear  as  did 
Hobbes,  but  by  the  social  instincts  which  they  found  in  human 
nature.     The  thesis  attempts  to  lift  up,  out  of  their  setting,  the 
peculiar  philosophies  of  these  early  thinkers  and  point  out  the 
arguments  by  which  they  sought  to  repudiate  the  absolute  egoism 
of  Hobbes ;  it  endeavors,  also,  to  show  under  what  auspices,  from 
what  point  of  view,  and  with  what  motives,  these  moralists  arrived 
at  their  conclusions.     Moreover,  the  thesis  aims   to  show  the 
peculiar  misconceptions  entertained  by  the  moralists  of  the  en- 
lightenment, and  their  futile  effort  to  relate  the  individual  to  a 
social  order  from  which  he  never  was,  and  never  could  have  been 
separated.     Furthermore,   it  endeavors   to  point  out  the  sharp 
distinction  between  the  views  of  the  enlightenment  and  those  of 
the  iQth  century,  regarding  the  nature  and  composition  of  society, 
and  to  show  that  whereas  the  thinkers  of  the  i8th  century  regarded 
society  as  an  aggregate  of  individual  atoms,  whom  they  endeav- 
ored to  bring  together  for  mutual  interest,  the  moralists  of  the 
I Qth  century,  on  the  contrary,  looked  upon  society  as  an  organism  ; 
and  unlike  the  thinkers  of  the  enlightenment  feel  no  necessity  of 
relating  man  to  his  social  environment,  since  he  has  never  been 
other  than  a  part  of  it.    The  effort  of  the  I9th  century  ethics  is 
not,  therefore,  to  relate  the  ego  to  the  alter,  but  to  secure  for  the 
individual  a  place  in  a  socialized  world  where  he  may  assert  his 
own  individuality  and  save  his  egohood.    The  thesis  will  endeavor 
to  bring  out  the  historical  fact,  that  whereas  the  enlightenment 
proceeded  from  the  individual  to  the  social,  the  present  attempts 
to  reverse  this  so  as  to  proceed  from  the  social  to  the  individual. 
The  purpose  of  the  thesis  might  be  illustrated  by  the  following 


The  Individual  and  Society  15 

diagram,  the  first  half  of  which  indicates  the  growth  of  the  social 
idea  during  the  i8th  century,  when  the  moralists  of  the  enlighten- 
ment, beginning  with  the  ego,  seek  to  relate  it  to  the  alter  by 
means  of  the  social  impulses,  which  they  endeavor  to  prove,  in 
repudiation  of  the  exclusive  egoism  of  Hobbes,  are  as  native  to 
man  as  his  egoistic  instincts.  The  second  half  of  the  diagram 
illustrates  the  organic  conception  of  society,  which  regards  the 
individual  not  only  as  an  inherent  part  of  a  social  order,  but  so 
dominated  by  it  that  the  ego  is  in  danger  of  losing  its  selfhood ; 
therefore,  the  moralists  of  the  igth  century  seek  to  reverse  the 
order  of  the  preceding  century  and  endeavor  to  get  back  to  the  ego. 
Princeton,  N.  J.,  April  10,  1914.  D.  B.  T. 


EGO 


SOCIETY  AN  ORGANISM    . 


EGO 


I.    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  MODERN  ETHICS. 
i.    EGOISM  A  MODERN  PROBLEM. 

The  individualistic  conception  of  humanity  did  not  appear  in 
ethics  in  any  dogmatic  form  until  after  the  publication  of  Grotius' 
De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis  in  1625.  It  is  not,  therefore,  until  we  come 
to  Hobbes  that  the  ego  is  placed  over  against  the  alter,  and  the 
thesis  maintained  that  humanity  began  with  the  individual  rather 
than  with  the  social. 

Our  thesis — "The  Individual  and  Society" — which  seeks  to 
compare  the  views  of  the  enlightenment  with  those  of  the  present, 
and  to  show  the  sharp  distinction  between  the  atomic  theory  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  the  social  or  organic  conceptions  of 
the  nineteenth  century  would  logically  begin  with  Hbbbes,  whose 
dogmatic  statement  of  "Status  Naturale"  presented  for  the  first 
time  the  problem  of  egoism,  and  called  into  question  the  social 
conceptions  of  ethics :  but  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  "De  Jure 
Belli  et  Pacis"  on  the  ethical  conceptions  of  its  day  and  its  indirect 
bearing  on  the  thought  of  Hobbes,  we  feel  that  a  study  of  the 
Grotian  "Jus  Naturale"  is  necessary,  not  only  to  a  fuller  concep- 
tion of  the  Hobbist  theory  of  the  "Status  Naturale,"  but  chiefly 
because  the  questions  raised  by  it,  led  Hobbes  to  adopt  the  opposite 
view  of  human  nature.  It  is  true  that  the  views  expressed  in 
"De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis"  were  not  in  the  main  peculiar  to  Grotius, 
but  the  emphasis  placed  by  him  on  the  social  instincts  of  man 
and  his  dogmatic  statement  of  "Jus  Naturale"  arrested  the  atten- 
tion of  his  contemporaries,  and  led  men  to  question  his  position 
and  to  "inquire,"  as  Sidgwick  suggests,  "what  was  man's  ultimate 
reason  for  obeying  these  laws,  and  in  what  sense,  and  how  far 
was  the  nature  of  man  social."1  Croom  Robertson,  like  Sidgwick, 
feels  that  the  "De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis"  had  a  very  direct  bearing 
on  the  views  entertained  by  Hobbes  regarding  man's  natural 
state  and  sees  in  the  "Leviathan"  "the  Dutch  publicist  plainly 
pointed  at  by  Hobbes,  throughout,  as  an  opponent."2  In  view 


1.  History  of  Ethics,— Sidgwick,  (4th  ed.),  p.  163. 

2.  Hobbes,— Croom  Robertson,  p.  143,   (if 

(17) 


1 8  The  Individual  and  Society 

of  these  facts,  we  feel  justified  in  beginning  our  thesis  with  Grotius 
instead  of  Hobbes,  and  will  examine  his  "Jus  Naturale"  and 
point  out  the  social  character  of  his  thought,  so  that  we  may 
better  understand  how  widely  removed  is  the  Hobbist  conception 
of  the  "Status  Naturale"  and  that  of  traditional  ethics. 

GROTIUS'  Jus  NATURALE. 

Grotius  refused  to  accept  the  Machiavellian  doctrine  of  his 
times,  "that  might  made  right."  The  love  of  war  and  the  selfish 
and  cruel  disregard  for  the  rights  of  others  so  obvious  in  his 
own  day1  he  believed  to  be  abnormal  and  not  the  natural  state  of 
man.  He,  therefore,  sought  amid  the  apparent  contradictions 
of  human  nature  a  fundamental  principle  in  man  to  which  he 
might  appeal,  and  this  he  found  in  "Jus  Naturale."  "This  original 
form  of  rights,  this  inherent  principle  of  natural  morality  is 
known  to  us,"  declares  Grotius,  "By  the  dictate  of  right  reason."2 
Hobhouse  says,  "that  the  principle  to  which  Grotius  appealed  was 
the  law  of  nature  which  expressed  the  profound  ethical  truth 
that  the  rights  and  duties  of  men  are  not  circumscribed  by  the 
limitations  of  positive  law  or  revelation,  but  rest  upon  certain 
universal  attributes  of  humanity."3  The  distinction  which  Grotius 
makes  between  "Jus  Naturale"  and  religion,  and  the  independence 
he  claims  for  the  former  shows  both  courage  and  intellectual 
acumen.  He  was  the  first  moralist  who  enunciated  a  principle 
of  rights  independent  of  religion,  and  outside  of  church  and  bible ; 
indeed,  he  went  so  far  in  exaltation  of  "Jus  Naturale"  as  to  say, 
that  it  would  have  force  even  if  there  were  no  God,  "non  esse 
deum,"4  and  he  held  that  these  human  rights  like  the  principles  of 
mathematics  were  unalterable  even  by  God  Himself.  "For  natural 
law,"  he  declares,  "is  so  immutable  that  it  cannot  be  changed 
even  by  God  Himself.  For  though  the  power  of  God  be  im- 


1.  See   Hobhouse's   account   of  the   savagery  of   war   in   Grotius'   day. 
Moral  Evolution,  vol.  I,  pp.  173-174.    White's  description  of  the  cruel  dis- 
regard of  the  rights  of  others  in  that  age,  "Seven  Great  Statesmen,"  p. 
55.    Also  Grotius'  own  account,  Prog.,  p.  59;    De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis. 

2.  Ibid,  vol.  I,  sec.  10,  p.  10. 

3.  Morals  in  Evolution,  vol.  I,  p.  274,  vol.  II,  pp.  224-225. 

4.  Prog.,  p.  46. 


The  Individual  and  Society  19 

mense  there  are  some  things  to  which  it  does  not  extend.  God 
himself  cannot  make  twice  two  not  be  four,  or  that  which  is 
intrinsically  bad  not  bad."1  Morality,  or  "Jus  Naturale,"  was 
for  Grotius  not  a  human  invention,  nor  was  it  a  divine  creation, 
but  part  of  the  original  stuff  out  of  which  humanity  was  formed ; 
hence  its  independence  of  religion,  and  its  validity  apart  from 
the  divine  sanction  or  existence.  Such  a  conception  was,  as  we 
shall  see  when  we  come  to  deal  with  the  statu  naturale,  antipodal 
to  the  views  entertained  by  Hobbes. 

THE  OPTIMISTIC  AND  SOCIAL  CHARACTER  OF  His 
THOUGHT.  * 

Grotius  did  not  seek  the  ground  and  basis  of  rights  in  the 
isolated  existence  of  the  individual  as  did  Hobbes,  but  in  the 
social  relations  of  man.  He  recognized  in  man  a  societatem 
appentitum  and  in  this  social  tendency  which  was  native  to  man 
he  found  the  source  of  "Jus  Naturale."2  He  disagrees  with  those 
who  would  make  utility  the  mother  of  Rights  and  points  out  the 
narrowness  and  inadequacy  of  such  a  view ;  "For  the  mother  of 
Rights,"  he  says,  is  "human  nature,  taken  as  a  whole  with  its 
impulses  of  kindness,  pity,  and  sociality."3  He  meets  the  utili- 
tarian views  of  individual  interest  by  stating  that  even  in  animals 
there  are  evidences  of  unselfish  desires,  for  they  have  regard  for 
their  offspring  and  under  the  powerful  impulse  of  paternal  love 
prefer  their  young  to  their  own  safety:  in  infants,  too,  anterior 
to  any  education  we  find  a  certain  disposition  to  do  good  to 
others,  while  in  man  there  is  very  positive  evidence  of  his  love  of 
society  for  its  own  sake.  "Man,"  he  says,  "delights  in  the  society 
of  his  fellowmen  independently  of  the  help  and  accommodation 
which  it  yields."*  Grotius  did  not  believe  that  you  could  under- 
stand human  nature  without  the  presupposition  of  his  social  in- 
stincts, and  he  based  the  fundamental  principles  of  ethics  upon 
his  social  tendencies,  deducing  the  "Philosophy  of  Rights"  from 
these  social  impulses  which  he  found  were  natural  to  man.  He 


r.  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pacis,  vol.  I,  sec.  5  and  sec.  17,  pp.  12,  26. 

2.  Prog.,  sec.  7-8. 

3.  Prog.,  sec.   16. 

4.  Prog.,  sec.  5-7. 


2O  The  Individual  and  Society 

appealed  to  human  reason  to  prove  the  validity  of  his  claims  and 
fell  back  upon  history  to  corroborate  it.  His  a  priori  deductions 
were  substantiated  by  his  a  posteriori  tests.  He  says  "I  have 
quoted  them" — referring  to  ancient  philosophers,  historians,  poets 
and  orators — "as  witnesses  whose  conspiring  testimony  proceeding 
from  innumerable  different  times  and  places  must  be  referred  to 
some  universal  cause."1  It  was  this  emphasis  which  he  placed  on 
the  social  nature  of  man  and  the  inalienable  rights  of  mankind 
which  he  held  were  like  the  truth  of  mathematics,  unalterable, 
that  justifies  our  inclusion  of  Grotius  in  this  thesis.  Grotius  does 
not  seek,  it  is  true,  to  -relate  the  individual  to  society  as  did 
Hobbes  and  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  century;  for  to  Grotius,  as 
to  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  thinkers,  the  individual  and  society 
were  not  a  problem.  His  purpose,  therefore,  is  to  prove  that 
man  possesses  certain  human  rights  which  are  independent  of  all 
external  authority,  and  have  their  source  in  the  social  nature  of 
man,  which  he  conceives  to  be  his  natural  state.  To  such  a 
view  of  human  nature  and  human  rights  Hobbes  took  exception, 
and  in  his  "Status  Naturalis"  presents  for  the  first  time  the 
problem  of  egoism  and  altruism,  the  individual  and  society. 

HOBBES,  whose  answer  to  the  questions  raised  by  "De  Jure 
Belli  et  Pads"  supplied,  as  Sidgwick  states,  the  starting-point 
for  independent  ethics  in  England,2  takes  a  very  different  view 
of  human  nature  than  that  of  the  "Dutch  publicist."  Where  the 
Grotian  conception  of  the  "Status  Naturalis"  is  optimistic  and 
social,  that  of  Hobbes  is  pessimistic  and  unsocial ;  a  conception  of 
human  nature  that  was  doubtless  due  in  part  to  his  temperamen- 
tality  and  the  social  unrest  of  his  times.3  Croom  Robertson  feels 
that  we  do  the  author  of  the  "Leviathan"  an  injustice  when  we 
fail  to  take  these  two  facts  into  consideration,  and  he  finds  in 
them  a  reasonable  explanation  for  the  Hobbist  conception  of 
the  "Status  Naturalis."  "We  must  never  forget,"  he  says, 
"amid  what  welter  of  social  strife  a  peace  loving  student  of  the 


1.  Prog.,  sec.  40,  p.  66,  vol.  I,  chap,  i,  sec.  12,  p.  16. 

2.  History  of  Ethics, — Sidgwick,  p.  163. 

3.  See  Shaftesbury's  Characteristics,  vol.  I,  pp.  61-63. 


The  Individual  and  Society  21 

I7th  century  was  doomed  to  spend  his  life."1  Sneath  not  only 
shares  this  view,  but  emphasizes  it  by  showing  the  impossibility 
of  a  just  appreciation  of  the  Hobbist  conception  of  human  nature 
or  his  sincerity,  when  these  two  facts  are  ignored.  Anxiety  for 
his  personal  safety  and  the  horrible  fear  of  death,  intensified  by 
the  uncertain  and  troublesome  conditions  of  the  times  had  a 
tendency  to  beget  in  him  a  general  distrust  of  men,  so  that  the 
unworthy  conceptions  of  human  nature  which  underlie  his  views 
of  man  must  be  considered  in  the  light  of  these  facts.  Studying, 
therefore,  his  ethical  and  political  philosophy  in  the  light  of  these 
conditions  in  which  he  reflected  and  wrote,  one  can,  in  a  measure 
at  least,  understand  how  he  was  led  to  form  a  conception  of 
nature  so  utterly  selfish  and  unsocial.2 

While  we  do  not  claim  that  the  conclusions  reached  by  Hob- 
bes  regarding  the  "Status  Naturalis"  were  due  entirely  to  his 
temperament  and  surroundings,  yet  we  feel  that  Sneath  was 
warranted  by  these  facts,  in  making  them  the  source  of  the 
Hobbist  conception  of  man  in  a  state  of  nature.  Few  specula- 
tive thinkers  escape  the  influence  of  their  own  times,  or  rise 
above  their  environment;  and  Hobbes  more  than  the  most  of 
them  was  the  child  of  his  age.  He  dealt  with  human  nature 
more  in  the  concrete  than  in  the  abstract,  and  studied  men 
more  than  man,  drawing  his  conclusions  largely  from  the  men 
whom  he  saw  around  him;  it  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  he 
should  see  in  the  distrust  and  hatred  of  men  toward  each  other, 
and  their  desire  to  break  up  the  existing  government,  an  evi- 
dence of  the  innate  unsocial  propensities  of  mankind.  Nor  is 
it  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  should  find  in  the  fanatical  Puri- 
tans, the  scheming  Jesuits  or  restless  agitators  who,  for  their 
private  ends,  would  turn  peace  into  war  or  order  into  anarchy, 
an  outbreak  of  selfish  and  unsocial  passions;  which  he  believed 
to  be  natural  to  man,  from  the  fact  that  though  repressed  within 
society  were  ready  to  appear  on  the  first  opportunity.  It  is 
perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  Hobbes  viewed  mankind 
largely  through  the  haze  of  political  passion  and  deduced  from 
the  actions  of  his  countrymen  the  primitive  man  as  portrayed  in 


1.  Hobbes, — Croom  Robertson,  p.  222.    See  also  Hobbes, — Leslie  Stephen, 
chap.  4,  (1904). 

2.  See  "The  Ethics  of  Hobbes,"— E.  H.  Sneath,  pp.  35-36. 


22  The  Individual  and  Society 

the  "Leviathan."  The  selfishness  and  unsociability  so  apparent 
in  his  own  day  undoubtedly  appealed  to  him  as  of  the  very 
essence  of  human  nature,  and  was,  as  Robertson  and  Sneath 
have  shown,  responsible  in  a  large  degree  for  his  egoistic  view 
of  man  in  a  state  of  nature.  Such  a  conception  of  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  man  became,  as  we  shall  see,  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  his  ethical  philosophy. 

EGOISM  AND  PESSIMISM  OF  HOBBES'  ETHICS. 
Egoism. 

Hobbes  seeks  to  base  human  life  on  the  ego  and  its  private 
affections ;  in  his  view  we  begin  with  the  individual  and  go  to  the 
social.  His  conception  of  human  nature  is  thoroughly  egoistic; 
he  does  not  inquire  whether  we  ought  to  have  a  disinterested 
regard  for  the  good  of  others;  he  asserts  that  this  is  impos- 
sible. His  ethics  is  therefore  psychological,  being  based  on  a 
description  of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  facts  of  human  nature 
as  revealed  to  introspection  and  substantiated  by  observation. 

Self-love,  for  Hobbes,  is  the  motive  of  all  action.  The  indi- 
vidual, he  says,  never  seeks  to  further  the  general  welfare, 
except  in  so  far  as  he  thereby  secures  his  own  ends;  even  those 
emotions  and  feelings  which  in  their  very  nature  were  looked 
upon  as  altruistic.  Hobbes  declares  to  be  egoistic.  Love  is 
nothing  more  than  a  selfish  desire  which  seeks  its  own  personal 
pleasure.  He  defines  it  as  "the  fruition  of  present  good  for 
ourselves."1  Sympathy  is  but  a  thinly  disguised  selfishness :  grief 
for  the  calamity  of  others,  is  pity  for  ourselves  and  "arises  from 
the  imagination  that  a  like  calamity  may  befall  ourselves,"  and 
is  therefore  strong  or  weak  in  proportion  as  we  imagine  the 
calamity  to  be  remote  or  near  at  hand.2  Even  the  affection 
which  parents  have  for  their  children  is  a  selfish  one,  and  is  called 
forth  because  we  expect  to  derive  some  benefit  from  them.8 
There  is  but  one  principle  in  man  as  Hobbes  views  him,  which 
is  the  source  of  all  his  action  and  to  which  he  ascribes  the  whole 
category  of  human  virtues,  namely — the  principle  of  self-love.4 

1.  Leviathan,  part  I,  chap.  6,  p.  47,  Ibid,  Bk.  IV,  chap.  10,  p.  44. 

2.  Ibid,  Bk.  IV,  chap.  10,  p.  44.     Leviathan,  part  I.  chap  6,  p.  47.     See 
also  "Principles  of  Ethics," — Fowler,  pp.  70-71. 

3.  Leviathan,  part  II,  chap.  30,  p.  329. 

4.  See  "Morality."— R.  B.  Fairbairn,  pp.  54-55. 


The  Individual  and  Society  23 

Pessimism. 

This  egoistic  conception  of  human  nature  led  to  pessimism" 
in  Hobbes,1  to  the  view  that  the  state  of  nature  is  a  state  of 
strife,  of  "all  against  all,"  Each  man  had  a  right  to  all  he  could 
secure  and  for  as  long  as  he  could  retain  it,  for  in  a  state  of 
nature  there  was  no  inequality  and  "no  mine  and  thine."  'Might' 
was  the  only  recognized  'Right.'2  There  were  no  rights,  human 
or  divine,  that  'might'  was  called  upon  to  respect,  for  indeed  in 
such  a  state  rights  did  not  exist.  Hobbes  declares  that  amid 
such  conditions  there  was  no  society,  no  social  instincts,  no  place 
for  industry,  for  nothing  was  secure ;  no  domestic  comforts,  since 
each  man  sustained  a  belligerent  attitude  toward  his  neighbor, 
"no  knowledge  of  the  face  of  the  earth,  no  account  of  time,  no 
arts,  no  letters,  no  society ;  and  which  is  worst  of  all,  con- 
tinual fear  and  danger  of  violent  death ;  the  life  of  man  was  soli- 
tary, poor,  nasty,  brutish  and  short."3 

From  such  a  state  of  war  and  rapine  Hobbes  saw  no  way 
of  escape  except  through  fear  of  a  worse  fate;  this  fear  drove 
primitive  man  into  a  mutual  agreement  to  transfer  each  his  own 
natural  rights — the  right  of  each  to  all — to  a  third  party  in  order 
to  secure  the  blessings  of  peace  and  safety.  Hyslop  sees  in  this 
pessimism  and  the  method  of  escape  suggested  by  Hobbes,  the 
chief  importance  of  the  Hobbist  ethics.  "The  importance  of 
Hobbes'  system,"  he  says,  "came  from  the  particular  pessimistic 
view  which  he  took  of  human  nature  and  the  means  necessary  to 
secure  social  order."4  Such  was  the  pessimistic  view  which 
Hobbes  entertained  regarding  human  nature,  which,  both  his 
observation  and  analysis  of  man,  led  him  to  conclude  was  true  to 
man  in  his  primitive  state. 

THE  ATTEMPTED  PROOF  OF  EGOISM  AND  PESSIMISM. 

This  social  and  belligerent  state  which  Hobbes  had  inferred  a 
priori  through  his  psychological  study  of  human  nature  is  proved 
to  him  a  posteriori  by  the  attitude  which  men  in  a  state  of  society 


1.  See  "Elements  of  Ethics,"— Hyslop,  pp.  81-82,  (1895). 

2.  See  also  "De  Corpore  Politico,''  part  I,  chap.  II,  sec.  10,  p.  44.    Levia- 
than, part  I,  chap.  6,  p.  47.     Bk.  chap.  10,  p.  44. 

3.  Ibid,  part  I,  chap.  13,  p.  113. 

4.  Elements  of  Ethics,— I.  H.  Hyslop,  p.  80,  (1895). 


24  The  Individual  and  Society 

sustain  toward  each  other.  Those  who  would  doubt  the  inference 
which  he  has  deduced  from  the  human  passions  and  who  demand 
an  empiric  proof  for  his  conclusions  regarding  primitive  man, 
he  bids  them  examine  their  own  attitude  toward  their  neighbors, 
and  they  will  find  sufficient  confirmation  for  the  inference  which 
he  has  deduced  from  and  a  priori  study  of  the  human  will.  "When 
men  in  a  state  of  society,  with  laws  for  their  protection  and  a 
strong  power  to  enforce  them,  arm  themselves  when  taking  a 
journey,  and  lock  their  doors  when  they  go  to  sleep,  and  even 
their  chests  in  their  own  homes,  do  they  not,  says  Hobbes,  accuse 
mankind  as  much  by  their  actions  as  I  do  by  my  words ;  and  is 
not  that  very  attitude  a  proof  of  the  unsocial  and  belligerent  nature 
of  primitive  man,  whose  passions  and  appetites  are  held  in  check 
by  no  external  power?"1 

DOGMATIC  VIEW  OF  "STATUS  NATURALIS." 

Hobbes  was  convinced,  as  we  have  seen,  both  by  his  observa- 
tion of  human  actions  and  his  analysis  of  the  human  passions, 
that  the  primitive  state  of  man  was  belligerent  and  unsocial.  This 
not  only  led  him  to  declare  that  the  "Status  Naturalis"  was  "a 
state  of  war  of  all  against  all,"  but  to  the  sincere  conviction  that 
in  such  a  state  morality  did  not  exist,  and  that  therefore  good  and 
evil  were  nothing  but  names  which  we  give  to  our  desires  and 
aversions ;  our  private  appetite  alone  being  the  measure  or  stand- 
ard of  both.2  In  this  view  of  human  nature  and  conduct,  he 
repudiates  the  intuitive  conception;  of  morality  and  becomes  a 
relativist  in  ethics,  as  he  had  for  the  same  reason  become  a  ma- 
terialist in  philosophy.  Morality  is  for  Hobbes  a  human  invention 
which  the  introduction  of  external  authority  made  possible.  "For 
where  there  is  no  common  power,"  he  says,  "there  is  no  law,  and 
where  there  is  no  law  there  is  no  injustice.  The  notion  of  right 
or  wrong,  justice  or  injustice  have  there  no  place,  since  these 
qualities  relate  to  man  in  society,  not  in  solitude,"3  in  such  a 
state  there  are  no  ethical  distinctions,  individual  desire  being  the 


1.  Leviathan,  part  I,  chap.  13,  pp.  114-115. 

2.  Leviathan,   Part  I,  chap.   15,  p.   146. 

3.  Ibid,  Part  I,  chap.  13,  p.  115.     De  Corpore  Politico,  Part  I,  chap.  13. 


The  Individual  and  Society  25 

measure  of  good  and  evil,  that  which  is  pleasant  is  for  man  in 
a  state  of  nature  good,  that  which  is  unpleasant,  evil.  "For 
every  man  by  natural  passion  calleth  that  good  which  pleaseth  him 
for  the  present;  and  in  like  manner  that  which  displeaseth  him 
evil."1  Nothing,  for  Hobbes,  was  good  or  evil  per  se,  it  becomes 
so  by  agreement.  The  covenant  into  which  man  enters  furnishes 
the  norm  of  justice,  the  content  of  good  and  evil,  and  the  starting 
point  of  ethics.  "Whatever  the  ruler  desires  becomes  right,"  he 
affirms,  "and  whatever  he  forbids  becomes  unlawful."2 

Hobbes  having  dogmatically  asserted,  and  from  his  point  of 
view  proved,  that  a  state  of  nature  is  a  state  of  isolation  and 
unsodability,  in  which  man  has  not  only  no  sense  of  moral  obliga- 
tion or  conception  of  right  or  wrong,  but  is  in  continual  fear  of 
death,  now  seeks  some  way  by  which  he  may  relate  him  to  society 
for  self  preservation,  this  he  does  by  means  of  fear,  which,  he 
says,  "disposeth  man  to  seek  aid  by  society,  since  there  is  no 
other  way  in  which  he  can  secure  life  and  liberty."3  There  is 
method  in  the  way  in  which  Hobbes  seeks  to  relate  the  individual 
to  society,  for  as  man  is  without  social  impulses,  and  dominated 
alone  by  self -regarding  feelings,  there  was  no  other  way  to  relate 
him  to  society  than  through  fear  of  a  worse  fate;  his  method  is 
consistent  and  logical.  Hobbes  is  no  immoralist  and  he  does  not 
resort  to  a  mere  device,  like  Mandeville,  to  account  for  morality 
and  the  social  life  of  man,  but  frankly  acknowledges  that  man 
is  unsocial  by  nature  and  can  only  be  related  to  society  by  his 
willingness  to  surrender  his  own  rights  and  by  means  of  a 
"compact"  submit  to  the  control  of  an  external  authority.4  The 
reverence  which  Hobbes  had  for  authority  saved  him  from  the 
immoralism  into  which  Mandeville  and  Nietzsche  fell.  It  enabled 
him  to  pass  from  egoism  to  relativism,  and  gives  to  his  system  a 
consistency  in  keeping  with  his  assumption  that  man  is  unsocial 
by  nature  and  becomes  social  and  moral  only  by  means  of  an 
external  power  by  which  he  passes  from  the  individual  to  the 
social. 


1.  Ibid,  Part  I,  chap.  4,  sec.  14. 

2.  De  Give,  chap.  12,  sec.  I,  chap.  14,  sec.  17. 

3.  Leviathan,  chap.  2,  p.  88. 

4.  De  Corpore  P'olitico,  Part  I,  chap.  2,  sec.  2. 


* 


26  The  Individual  and  Society 

THE  ERROR  IN  THE  HOBBIST  ANTHROPOLOGY. 

The  error  in  the  Hobbist  anthropology  was  only  partially  cor- 
rected by  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  century  who  attacked  his 
egoism.  They  repudiated  his  assumption  that  man  possessed 
nothing  but  self-regarding  feelings,  but  not  his  individualistic 
conception  of  society.  Their  attempt  to  relate  the  individual  to 
the  social  through  his  social  and  benevolent  feelings,  show  their 
own  individualistic  conception  of  society  and  their  inability  to 
entirely  correct  the  Hobbist  anthropology.  It  is,  therefore,  neces- 
sary in  proving  the  anthropological  error  of  the  Hobbist  "Status 
Naturalis"  to  fall  back  upon  the  iQth  century,  whose  conception 
of  the  historical  continuity  of  the  race  and  organic  nature  of 
society  makes  impossible  an  anthropological  conception  of  man 
such  as  Hobbes  had  assumed.  The  error  in  the  Hobbist  anthro- 
pology lies  in  his  assumption  that  such  a  creature  ever  existed. 
Neither  history  nor  human  experience  know  anything  of  a  state 
of  nature  such  as  Hobbes  had  pictured. 

The  ethnologist  has  shown  us  that  man  was  never  free  in  a 
state  of  nature  to  seize  whatever  he  could  secure,  nor  did  he 
in  his  most  primitive  state,  live  in  solitude  and  selfish  egoism 
such  as  Hobbes  conceived  to  be  his  condition.  Indeed,  the  facts, 
as  we  shall  see,  prove  a  state  of  nature  the  very  opposite  from 
that  which  Hobbes  had  described.  In  the  lowest  conditions  of 
human  life  known  to  us,  man  is  not  only  found  in  society  but 
is  so  dominated  and  controlled  by  it,  that  from  the  very  begin- 
ning of  humanity  the  individual  has  been  struggling  for  freedom. 
There  is  no  race  or  state  of  nature  in  which  the  taboo  in  some 
form  is  not  found,  and  in  the  most  primitive  stages  of  human  life 
it  acted  as  a  kind  of  conscience  to  them  forbidding  this  and  sanc- 
tioning that;  social  customs,  too,  have  always  held  man  as  in  a 
vice.1  Taylor  in  describing  prehistoric  man,  and  man  in  his 
lowest  savage  state,  says  that  "it  is  very  evident  that  man  did  not 
even  in  his  wildest  days  indulge  his  desires  without  restraint, 
and  did  not  clutch  whatever  he  longed  for,  and  with  gnarled  club 
batter  in  the  skull  of  anyone  who  stood  in  his  way  .  .  .  the 


i.  See  Article  by  J.  D.  Stoops,  in  the  International  Journal  of  Ethics, 
Jan.,  1913.    See  also  The  Facts  of  the  Moral  Life,— Wundt,  pp.  265-267. 


The  Individual  and  Society  27 

asserted  existence  of  savages  so  low  as  to  have  no  moral  standard, 
is  too  groundless  to  be  discussed."1 

History  not  only  proves  that  Hobbes  was  in  error  regarding 
his  assumption  that  man  in  a  state  of  nature  was  free  to  seize 
whatever  he  could  secure  and  for  as  long  as  he  could  keep  it; 
but  it  proves  also,  that  he  was  in  error  both  in  regard  to  the 
origin  of  society  and  the  egoistic  nature  of  the  human  will. 
Westermark  declares  that  the  altruistic  instincts  are  not  only 
found  among  the  lowest  savage  races  as  among  civilized  peo- 
ple, "but  have  always  belonged  to  the  human  race  from  the  very 
beginning,  as  has  also  the  germ  of  the  maternal  affection."2  The 
man  of  solitude  and  unsocial  instincts  of  the  Hobbist  type  never 
did  and  never  could  exist.  The  facts  of  human  experience  and  the 
history  of  the  race  prove  how  false  and  erroneous  are  the  anthro- 
pological conceptions  of  Hobbes,  and  how  unwarranted  were  his 
conclusions.  Croom  Robertson  says,  "History  knows  nothing  of 
men  existing  in  a  state  of  savage  warfare,  even  the  Troglodytes  are 
members  of  a  tribe."3  "The  oldest  records  of  our  race,"  says 
Fowler,  "and  all  the  instruments  that  are  to  be  gathered  from  the 
most  archaic  forms  of  language  and  institutions  present  man 
as  existing  from  the  first  in  the  family  or  at  least  in  the  tribal 
group."*  A  similar  statement  appears  in  Taylor's  "Primitive 
Culture,"  where  he  shows  that  the  instruments  used  in  the  stone 
age  indicate  not  only  a  social  state  but  a  condition  of  society 
differing  little  from  modern  savage  tribes.5  Lubbock  corrobo- 
rates Taylor's  conclusions  by  proving  the  sociability  of  the  most 
primitive  savage  through  the  instruments  which  were  used  by 
them.  "Which  instruments,"  he  says,  "whether  stone,  iron  or 
bronze  point  to  a  social  life  among  the  people."6  However  much 


1.  Article  in  Contemporary  Review,  vol,  XXI,  (1873),  PP-  701-702.    See 
also  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  I,  chap.  1-2.    Taylor. 

2.  The  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideals, — E.  Westermarck, 
vol.  I,  p.  532,  (1906). 

3.  Hobbes, — Croom  Robertson,  p.  424. 

4.  Principles  of  Morals, — Thomas  Fowler,  Part  II,  p.  74. 

5.  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  i,  pp.  57-64.    See  also  The  Ethical  Importance 
of  Darwinism.    J.  G.  Schurman,  chap.  6,  (1887). 

6.  The  Origin  of  Civilization  of  Primitive  Conditions  of  Man,  Natural 
and  Social  Conditions  of  Savages.— Lubbock,  p.  19,  (sth  ed.,  1898). 


28  The  Individual  and  Society 

opinion  may  differ  among  anthropologists,  regarding  the  forms 
of  primitive  society,  they  all  agree  as  to  the  fact  of  society,  and 
hold  it  to  be  coexistent  with  the  beginning  of  human  life.  A 
state  of  nature  which  the  Hobbist  anthropology  suggests,  they 
declare  to  be  impossible.  McLennan  says  that  "all  the  evidence 
we  have  goes  to  show  that  men  were  from  the  beginning  gre- 
garious. The  geological  records  distinctly  exhibit  them  in  groups. 

.  .  .  We  hear  nothing  in  the  most  ancient  times  of  indi- 
viduals except  as  being  members  of  groups."1 

Maurice  quotes  Sir  Henry  Main*  as  saying  that  in  a  state  of  na- 
ture anterior  to  the  establishment  of  law  the  unit  of  society  was 
not  the  individual  but  the  family,2  and  Giddings  finds  even  in 
man's  prehuman  state  the  social  instinct.  "There  is  hardly  a 
single  fact  in  the  whole  range  of  sociological  knowledge  that 
does  not  support  the  conclusion  that  the  race  was  social  before 
it  was  human,  and  that  its  social  qualities  were  the  chief  means 
of  developing  its  human  nature."3  The  above  quotations  are  suf- 
ficient to  show  that  the  error  in  the  Hobbist  anthropology  lay  in 
his  assumption  that  man  in  a  state  of  nature  was  an  isolated 
ego,  untrammeled  and  unsocial,  with  no  moral  obligation  and  no 
altruistic  instincts.  His  psychological  analysis  of  man  was  defec- 
tive through  its  omission  of  certain  elements  in  the  human  will  : 
by  ignoring  the  social  feelings,  such  as  sympathy  and  a  genuine 
regard  for  the  good  of  others,  he  was  forced  to  begin  with  inade- 
quate premises,  and  unwilling  to  credit  human  nature  with  social 
as  well  as  self -regarding  feelings,  he  was  compelled  by  the  very 
self -consistency  of  his  logical  intellect  to  assume  an  anthropo- 
logical theory  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  facts  of  a  more  gen- 
eral experience. 


1.  Primitive    Marriage, — McLennan,    chap.   8,   p.    162.      See   also    Social 
Psychology, — Robert  MacDougall,  p.  85,  in  which  he  states  that  almost  all 
anthropologists  agree  "that  primitive  man  was,  at  least  to  some  extent, 
gregarious  in  his  habits."     Mazes,  also  after  showing  the  social  instinct 
in  animals,  says  "that  man  is  a  descendant  of  gregarious  animals  and  has 
always  lived  in  groups,  is  beyond  doubt."     Ethics  Descriptive  and  Explana- 
tory,— S.  E.  Mazes,  p.  155,   (1900). 

2.  Social  Morality, — Maurice,  p.  no,  (1893).    See  Principles  of  Ethics, — 
B.  P.  Bowne,  p.  258,  (1898). 

3.  The  Elements  of  Sociology, — F.  H.  Giddings,  p.  232. 


The  Individual  and  Society  29 

OPPOSITION  TO  HOBBES. 

The  Hobbist  theory  of  ethics  which  made  morality  a  human 
invention  and  man  a  selfish  and  unsocial  ego,  run  so  diametrically 
counter  to  all  the  views  on  religious  ethics  current  up  to  that 
time,  that  it  was  met  by  violent  opposition  on  the  part  of  the 
moralists  of  his  day,  and  continued  with  varying  degrees  of  inten- 
sity until  the  beginning  of  the  iQth  century.  But  while  the 
ethical  writers  of  his  own  time  and  country  were  practically 
unanimous  in  their  opposition  to  Hobbes,  their  methods  of  attack 
were  by  no  means  the  same.  Some  were  incensed  at  the  brutal 
egoism  of  his  system,  others  at  the  arbitrary  character  which  he 
assigned  to  moral  distinctions;  for  an  ethic  that  did  not  hesitate 
to  proclaim  egoism  as  the  ultimate  and  justifiable  spring  of  moral 
conduct,  could  not  long  remain  uncontradicted  by  men  who 
believed  in  innate  morality  and  the  altruistic  instincts  of  the 
human  will;  consequently  the  theories  of  Hobbes  were  attacked 
at  both  of  these  points;  his  relativism  by  the  exponents  of 
rational  intuitions,  and  his  exclusive  egoism  by  the  other  forms 
of  intuition.  Cudworth  and  Clark,  the  two  representatives  of 
rational  intuitionism,  saw  in  the  political  absolutism  of  Hobbes, 
the  implication  that  right  and  wrong  were  determined  by  an 
arbitrary  social  compact,  and  they  opposed  this  human  origin  of 
morality  and  declared  that  moral  ideas  were  innate  truths. 
Indeed,  Cudworth  is  so  much  concerned  to  establish  a  system  of 
eternal  and  immutable  truths,  among  which  are  the  truths  of 
ethics,  that  never  once  in  his  "Treatise  Concerning  Eternal  and 
Immutable  Morality"  does  he  take  the  trouble  to  combat  the 
egoism  of  Hobbes.  Good  and  evil,  for  Cudworth,  are  not  human 
inventions,  changeable  and  relative,  but  are  eternal  truths  having 
a  fixed  nature  and  are  independent  of  opinions  or  compacts,  and 
cannot  therefore,  be  determined  arbitrarily  by  the  will  or  power 
of  man  or  even  of  God.  "Mere  will  can  no  more  turn  good 
into  evil  or  evil  into  good,  than  it  can  turn  black  into  white. 
Justice  is  immutable  and  eternal ;  it  is  natural  and  not  artificial," 
that  is,  its  laws  are  inherent  in  the  very  essence  of  things.  Clark, 
whose  opposition  to  the  relativity  of  Hobbes,  is  just  as  pro- 
nounced as  that  of  Cudworth,  not  only  denies  that  morality  had 
a  human  origin,  but  declares  that  even  God  did  not  invent  it; 


3O  The  Individual  and  Society 

'for  moral  ideas  are  innate  truths  whose  principles  are  as  intu- 
itively evident  to  reason  as  those  of  mathematics,  and  it  would 
be  as  absurd  to  deny  the  one  as  to  deny  the  other.'  The  laws  of 
morality  he  claimed  express  the  eternal  fitness  or  unfitness  of 
actions,  and  these  laws  God  does  not  arbitrarily  create,  but  neces- 
sarily determines  himself  to  act  in  agreement  with  them,  in 
other  words,  "God  chooses  the  good  because  it  is  good." 

The  theory  of  "relativity"  assumed  such  proportions  in  the 
minds  of  the  "Cambridge  Platonists"  that  they  seemed  to  have 
lost  sight  of  the  exclusive  egoism  of  Hobbes.  The  isolated  ego 
impelled  alone  by  self-regarding  feelings,  which  Hobbes  had 
conceived  to  be  its  condition  in  a  state  of  nature,  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  as  such,  a  problem  for  rational  intuitionism.  The 
failure  of  the  Cambridge  school  to  meet  the  absolute  egoism  of 
Hobbes,  led  other  moralists  to  attack  that  side  of  the  Hobbist 
ethics,  and  to  prove  not  only  how  erroneous  was  the  assumption 
that  man  in  a  state  of  nature  was  moved  alone  by  self -regarding 
impulses,  but  that  without  the  social  instincts,  which  they  endeavor 
to  show  are  inherent  in  human  nature,  man  never  could  have 
been  related  to  society.  One  of  the  first  and  most  influential  of 
the  earlier  ethical  writers  to  attack  the  egoism  of  Hobbes  and  to 
point  out  the  impossibility  of  human  society  without  social  and 
benevolent  instincts  was  Richard  Cumberland. 

CUMBERLAND'S  IDEAL  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 
In  opposition  to  the  dogmatic  assertion  of  Hobbes  that  man- 
kind has  passed  from  a  pure  egoism  to  a  thoroughly  social  condi- 
tion, Cumberland  seeks  to  create  the  idea  that  the  given  condition 
of  humanity  was  the  social,  and  this  he  does  in  connection  with 
his  ideal  of  benevolence.  Cumberland  followed  the  Hobbist 
method  of  observation  and  reason,  in  his  study  of  the  laws  of 
nature  i1  but  he  arrived  at  a  very  different  conclusion  from  that 
of  Hobbes,  both  as  to  the  origin  of  morals  and  the  "Status 
Naturalis."  In  his  psychological  study  of  man  he  finds  in  addi- 
tion to  the  egoistic  instincts  which  Hobbes  had  discovered  in 
him,  a  social  motive  in  the  human  will,  and  it  is  through  that 
social  motive,  (which  for  him  is  an  active  and  not  a  passive 
volition)2  expressed  in  benevolent  acts,  instead  of  "through  fear 

1.  De  Legibus  Naturae,  (1750),  see  Proleg.,  sec.  29,  chap.  I,  sec.  3. 

2.  Ibid,  chap.  I,  sec.  4. 


The  Individual  and  Society  31 

of  a  worse  fate/'  that  Cumberland  finds  the  true  point  of  contact 
between  the  ego  and  the  alter.  In  repudiating  the  Hobbist  theoi  y 
of  man  in  a  state  of  nature,  he  points  out  the  impossibility  of 
bringing  together  such  men  as  Hobbes  had  described,  without  the 
element  of  sympathy.  'If  it  be  true,'  he  says,  'as  Hobbes  had 
declared,  that  men  anterior  to  the  compact  were  "more  fierce 
and  savage  than  bears,  wolves  and  serpents,"  then  it  were  evi- 
dently impossible  to  reduce  such  beasts  of  prey,  always  thirsting 
after  the  blood  of  their  fellows,  into  a  civil  state  i'1  for  if  man 
ever  possessed  the  right  to  act  like  bears,  wolves  and  serpents, 
killing  and  destroying  each  other  "then  the  natural  and  necessary 
consequence  is  that  no  one  human  creature  can  agree  to  enter  into 
society."2  Human  beings  minus  all  social  and  benevolent  in- 
stincts could  never  be  brought  together  so  as  to  form  a  civil 
society ;  even  the  compact,  he  declares,  would  avail  nothing  unless 
there  was  something  in  human  nature  that  could  make  men  abide 
by  their  promises.  Cumberland  saw  the  futility  of  the  Hobbist 
method  of  relating  man  to  society  by  means  of  fear  and  pointed 
out  a  more  excellent  way  by  showing  that  man  is  endowed  with 
a  social  will  which  finds  in  the  happiness  of  others  its  own  greater 
happiness.3  "Our  own  happiness,  therefore,  cannot  be  separated 
from  a  studious  concern  for  the  happiness  of  others,  i.  e.  the 
universal  social  happiness  of  all."*  'It  is  through  these  benevolent 
instincts  with  which  man  in  a  state  of  nature  has  been  endowed, 
that  he  seeks  the  society  of  his  kind  and  forms  a  civil  state/5  It 
must,  therefore,  have  been  apparent  to  all  "that  a  mutual  social 
assistance  would  prove  useful  convenient  and  beneficial ;  and  the 
natural  propensity  of  the  human  mind  toward  such  a  state  is 
capable,"  says  Cumberland,  "of  full  discovery  by  proper  signs, 
marks  and  tokens."6  He  points  out  the  fallacious  statement  of 
Hobbes  "that  man  by  discipline,  institutions,  and  instructions, 
and  not  by  nature  is  made  fit  for  society,  by  declaring  that  "the 
soul  is  naturally  adapted  to  enter  into  society  and  unless  it  does 
submit  to  enter  into  a  social  state,  it  neglects  its  principal  use 


1.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  22. 

2.  De  Legibus  Naturae,  (1750),  chap.  9,  sec.  12,  part  III. 

3.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  16. 

4.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  8,  sec.  23. 

5.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  23. 

6.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  19,  part  I. 


32  The  Individual  and  Society 

and  employment,  and  lets  go  the  best  advantage  of  its  own  natural 
disposition."1  "To  refuse,  therefore,  to  exercise  these  benevolent 
impulses,  is  to  act  contrary  to  right  reason  and  out  of  harmony 
with  our  social  nature."2  In  his  biological  argument  for  the 
universal  law  of  benevolence,  he  refers  to  the  social  nature  of 
animals,  which,  he  says  does  not  differ  from  that  of  man,  as  a 
further  proof  of  man's  social  propensities  and  love  of  society. 
"Nothing  is  more  delightful  to  animals  than  society.  It  is  a 
truth  too  well  known  to  need  any  proof,  that  members  of  the 
same  species,  if  by  accident  it  so  happens  they  are  separated,  when- 
ever they  espy  each  other  even  at  a  great  distance  rejoice,  seem 
delighted,  leap  for  joy,  and  are  eager  to  meet ;  they  freely  eat  and 
drink  and  play  together  and  rarely  if  ever  fight.  This  social 
instinct  is  a  mark  of  distinction  common  to  all  animals  in  general, 
and  by  consequence  to  that  of  man."3 

I  have  quoted  the  above  statements  from  Cumberland's  "De 
Legibus  Naturae,"  regarding  man's  social  and  benevolent  nature 
not  only  to  prove  that,  contrary  to  the  Hobbist  conception  of  the 
"Status  Naturalis,"  he  found  in  the  human  will,  social  as  well  as 
self -regarding  feelings,  but  to  show  that  his  individualistic  con- 
ception of  society,  which  characterized  the  moralists  of  the  i8th 
century,  led  him  to  regard  the  ego  in  a  state  of  nature  as  unrelated 
to  society.  The  point  of  difference  between  the  Hobbist  view 
of  man  in  a  state  of  nature  and  that  of  Cumberland,  is  in  their 
conception  of  the  nature  of  the  ego.  Both  mem  conceive^a  state 
in  which  there  is  no  society,  both  recognize  the  need  of  a  civil 
state,  and  seek  a  way  by  which  they  may  relate  the  ego  to  the 
alter.  Hobbes,  finding  no  social  instincts  in  man,  relates  him 
to  society  by  means  of  fear;  while  Cumberland,  who  discovers 
a  universal  law  of  benevolence,  relates  him  to  society  by  his 
social  instincts,  which  he  says,  "disposeth  man  to  seek  the  society 
of  others,  and  thereby  to  form  a  civil  state." 

Cumberland  not  only  attacked  the  exclusive  egoism  of  Hobbes 
and  his  method  of  relating  man  to  society,  but  like  Cudworth  and 
Clark,  he  opposed  his  theory  of  relativity.  Morality,  for  Cum- 


1.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  2,  4. 

2.  Ibid,  chap.  5,  sec.  15.    See  Ethics  of  Positivism, — Barzellotti,  p.  104. 

3.  De  Legibus  Naturae,  chap.  2,  sec.  18,  20. 


The  Individual  and  Society  33 

berland,  is  not  independent  of  God,  for  though  it  is  inherent  in 
human  nature,  it  is  not  original  and  substantive,  but  created.  It 
owes  its  existence  to  a  divine  creation.  Unlike  Cudworth  and 
Clark,  Cumberland  is  inclined  to  accept  the  Scotist  view  of  the 
good  and  declares  that  the  good  is  good  because  God  wills  it. 
His  view  of  morality  in  regard  to  its  divine  origin  harmonizes 
more  with  Locke's  conception  than  with  that  of  Cudworth  and 
Clark,  for  he  regards  morality,  like  Locke,  as  inherent  in  the 
universal  order  of  things,  but  by  divine  determination.  God  and 
not  man  is  the  starting  point  of  ethics ;  he  therefore  repudiates  the 
Hobbist  origin  of  morals  and  declares  that  in  a  state  of  nature 
man  possessed  moral  concepts.  "The  sense  of  justice  is  innate  in 
man  and  is  exercised  even  in  a  state  of  nature,  for  some  obliga- 
tion is  affixed  to  the  laws  of  nature;  either  from  such  punish- 
ment as  conscience  forebodes,  will,  at  some  future  time,  be 
inflicted  by  Almighty  God;  or  from  those  punishments,  even, 
which  each  and  every  one  individual  can,  in  a  state  of  nature,  with 
justice  inflict  upon  any  who  transgress  and  violate  the  laws  of 
nature,"1  for  "there  is  in  a  state  of  nature  some  distinction  be- 
tween just  and  unjust,  lawful  and  unlawful."2  "These  laws  of 
nature  lay  obligations  upon  all  outward  acts  of  behavior,  even 
in  a  state  of  nature  prior  and  antecedent  to  all  laws  of  human 
imposition  whatever."3  These  natural  laws,  which  Cumberland 
reduced  to  one  universal  law  of  benevolence  or  universal  love,4 
carry  in  them  an  eternal  sanction  and  obligation.5 

Hobbes  had  denied  the  existence  of  natural  laws6  and  with  it, 
moral  obligation7  on  the  ground  that  a  law  must  be  clearly  pro- 
mulgated by  a  competent  authority  with  power  to  enforce  it, 
and  as  no  such  authority  existed  anterior  to  the  compact,  he, 
therefore,  affirmed  that  no  such  laws  existed.  Cumberland 
accepts  the  Hobbist  definition  of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  proves 
that  the  laws  of  nature  are  laws,  precisely  in  the  sense  in  which 
Hobbes  uses  the  word  and  meet  the  requirements  included  in 


1.  Ibid,  chap.  I,  sec.  26. 

2.  Ibid,  sec.  32,  sec.  35. 

3.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  I. 

4.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  9. 

5.  Ibid,  Proleg.,  sec.  28,  chap.  I,  sec.  20. 

6.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  3,  sec.  5. 

7.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  i. 


34  The  Individual  and  Society 

his  definition.  The  authority  for  these  laws,  Cumberland  traces 
back  to  God,  the  first  cause,  and  the  promulgation  of  them  to 
their  uniform  action  in  human  experience,  which  "express  with 
sufficient  clearness,  without  the  use  of  words,  the  evidence  of 
their  existence."1 

The  purpose  which  Cumberland  has  in  view  in  establishing 
the  validity  of  natural  laws  was  not  merely  a  refutation  of  the 
Hobbist  denial  of  them,  but  that  he  might,  by  their  existence, 
prove  that  God  and  not  man  is  the  norm  and  source  of  moral- 
ity, which  like  the  divine  nature  is  immutable:  that  things  are 
good  not  because  we  desire  them,  as  Hobbes  had  contended,  but 
that  on  the  contrary  "things  are  first  judged  to  be  good,  and  then 
they  are  afterwards  desired  only  so  far  as  they  are  judged  and 
determined  good."2  Cumberland  having  proved  the  existence 
of  natural  laws  independent  of  human  compacts,  then  reduces 
them  to  one  universal  law  of  benevolence3  through  which  he 
relates  the  ego  to  society  and  establishes  the  moral  concept 
anterior  to  all  civil  society.4 

CUMBERLAND'S  REVISION  OF  THE  HOBBIST  ETHICS. 

Cumberland  undertook  not  only  a  refutation  of  the  egoistic 
postulate  which  Hobbes  had  maintained  was  the  basis  of  society, 
but  a  revision  of  his  whole  ethical  system.  In  placing  the  empha- 
sis upon  man's  social  and  benevolent  impulses,  which  prompt  men 
to  the  pleasures  of  pacific  intercourse  as  certainly  as  the  appre- 
hension of  danger  and  destruction  urges  them  to  avoid  hostil- 
ity, and  by  showing  that  moral  concepts  are  coterminous  with 
human  existence  and  therefore  independent  of  human  com- 
pacts, he  reverses  the  entire  ethical  views  of  the  Hob- 
bist system  of  ethics.  The  fundamental  principle  of  the  Cum- 
berland ethics  is  the  universal  law  of  benevolence  which,  for 
him,  embraces  not  only  humanity,  but  all  nature  in  its  scope,  and 
impells  men  to  seek  the  greater  public  good  in  preference  to  his 
own  lesser  private  good.  The  end  of  morality  for  Cumberland 
is  not,  as  with  Hobbes,  the  individual  good,  but  the  furtherance 


1.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  22. 

2.  Ibid,  chap.  3,  sec.  3. 

3.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  9,  p.  23. 

4.  Ibid,  chap.  5,  sec.  19. 


The  Individual  and  Society  35 

of  the  common  welfare;  this  common  welfare,  however,  is 
not  regarded  by  him  as  identical  with  the  sum  of  individual  wel- 
fares, but  is  rather,  for  Cumberland,  the  social  welfare  of  the 
whole;  perhaps  no  single  phrase  could  express  his  ideal  so  com- 
pletely as  Leslie  Stephen's  phrase  "the  health  of  the  social  organ- 
ism." Cumberland  even  suggests  the  possibility  of  a  rational 
creature  seeking  the  public  good,  though  there  may  seem  no 
possibility  that  any  private  good  will  result  from  it.1 

In  making  the  contents  of  the  moral  law  refer  directly  to  the 
good  of  the  whole  and  only  indirectly  to  the  good  of  the  indi- 
vidual, he  completely  revises  the  ethics  of  Hobbes,  and  makes 
impossible  the  theory  of  an  original  state  of  war,  which  assumes 
egoism  as  the  only  spring  of  human  action.2  Croom  Robert- 
son says  of  this  revision,  that  "we  see  in  Cumberland's  Laws 
of  Nature,  Hobbism  made  altruistic."3 

A  study  of  Cumberland  discloses  the  fact  that  he  "builded  bet- 
ter than  he  knew ;"  for  though  his  "De  Legibus  Naturae"  is  cum- 
bersome, many  of  his  arguments  irrelevant,  his  treatment  of 
the  nature  of  the  good  obscure  and  somewhat  ambiguous, — as 
he  seems  at  times  to  confuse  the  good  with  the  idea  of  perfec- 
tion and  then  with  self-preservation,  and  again  with  the  hedonic 
idea  of  happiness, — nevertheless,  his  system  has  been  the  start- 
ing point  of  much  of  the  ethics  that  followed  him.  He  was  the 
first  exponent,  in  England  at  least,  of  a  tendency  which  for  a 
long  time  practically  dominated  English  ethics.  No  writer  of  his 
time  sounds  so  modern  as  we  read  him  to-day.  Many  of  his 
words,  and  not  a  few  of  his  ideas  remind  us  of  the  moralist  of 
the  iQth  century.  The  word  "social"  which  up  to  the  appear- 
ance of  "De  Legibus  Naturae"  had  not  been  used  by  ethical 
writers,  is  employed  by  him  most  frequently.  Such  phrases 
as  "social  laws,"  "social  obligation,"*  "social  intercourse,"  "imi- 
versal  social  happiness,"5  "social  union,"  "social  states,"6  "mutual 
social  alliance"  and  "social  animals"7  are  phrases  which  he  is  con- 


1.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  21. 

2.  See  Ethical  Systems,— Wundt,  pp.  60-62. 

3.  Hobbes,— Croom  Robertson,  p.  208,  (1886). 

4.  De  Legibus  Naturae,  chap.  I,  sec.  22,  sec.  23. 

5.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  8. 

6.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  33. 

7.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  2. 


36  The  Individual  and  Society 

stantly  using.  Rectitude  and  conscience  are  words  which  appear 
in  his  "Laws  of  Nature;"  and  while  conscience,  for  Cumber- 
land, is  more  a  matter  of  intellect  than  feeling,  yet  there  is  an 
anticipation  of  the  judicial  function  of  conscience  found  in  But- 
ler, "our  mind  is  conscious  to  itself  of  all  its  own  actions.  It 
sits  as  a  judge  upon  its  own  actions,  and  thence  procures  to 
itself  either  tranquility  and  joy,  or  anxiety  and  sorrow.  In  this 
power  of  the  mind  and  the  actions  thence  arising  consists  the 
whole  force  of  conscience,  by  which  it  proposes  laws  to  itself, 
examines  its  past  and  regulates  its  future  conduct."1  The  He- 
donic  Calculus  might  well  have  been  suggested  to  Bentham  by  his 
method  of  finding  out  the  summum  bonum.2  He  almost  used 
the  utilitarian  maxim  of  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  num- 
ber, by  showing  "that  individual  happiness  alone,  is  not  to  be 
regarded  but  the  common  good  of  all  ...  "for  the  com- 
mon good  is  the  greatest  good."3  For  one  brief  moment  he 
seemed  to  have  felt,  like  Hutcheson,  that  man  was  capable  of 
disinterested  benevolence,  and  in  that  momentary  glimpse,  he 
saw  the  possibility  of  some  human  actions  being  performed  with 
a  view  to  the  happiness  of  others,  without  any  consideration  of 
pleasure  reflected  back  on  themselves.  "Nay  we  must  constantly 
act  thus  (i.  e.  we  must  practice  benevolence)  even  in  cases  where 
frequently  there  is  not  the  least  prospect  or  hope  of  any  reward 
or  return;  and  what  is  even  still  more,  we  must  indispensably 
act  thus,  notwithstanding  we  are,  in  many  cases,  persuaded  accord- 
ing to  the  general  rules  of  probability,  that  any  return  of  love 
suitable  to  such  generous  benevolent  acts  is  a  quite  groundless 
expectation."* 

Cumberland,  though  writing  nearly  two  centuries  before  Dar- 
win seems  to  have  had  at  least  a  partial  conception  of  the  organic 
nature  of  society,  for  he  refers  frequently  to  the  animal  organism 
in  illustrating  the  dependence  of  individual  happiness  on  what 
we  might  call  "the  health  of  the  social  organism;"  but  the  in- 


1.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  12,  26. 

2.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  4,  pp.  141-142. 

3.  Ibid,  chap.  2,  sec.  20,  chap.  I,  sec.  33. 

4.  Ibid,  chap,  i,  sec.  21,  see  also  chap.  2,  sec.  20. 


The  Individual  and  Society  37 

dividualism  of  his  day  prevented  him,  as  it  did  Shaftesfoury,  from 
grasping  the  full  significance  of  such  a  concept,  and  led  him,  as 
it  did  his  successors,  into  an  unnecessary  effort  to  prove  that 
man  was  a  social  creature. 

In  Shaftesbury  we  have  a  further  enlargement  of  the  social 
conception  of  human  life  as  against  the  individual  postulate  of 
Hobbes,  where  Cumberland  had  inverted  the  Hobbist  point  of 
view  by  emphasizing  the  virtue  of  benevolence,  Shaftesbury  fur- 
thers the  progress  of  the  social,  by  a  direct  reference  to  the  social 
instincts  in  both  man  and  animal.  Shaftesbury's  treatment  of 
psychological  and  biological  questions  as  well  as  social  problems 
is  extremely  modern,  and  reminds  one  more  of  the  writers  of 
the  I  Qth  century  than  the  moralists  of  his  own  day;  for  though 
he  writes  in  the  termonology  of  the  school-men,  his  subject  matter 
at  times  resembles  more  the  thought  of  a  later  age.  Robertson 
says  that  Shaftesbury  has  given  to  us  "Many  shrewd  hints  of 
social  evolution"  .  .  .  and  "he  deserves,  among  other  things, 
to  rank  as  one  of  the  first  of  our  sociologists;  since  ideas  which 
afterwards  seem  fresh  in  Hume  and  Ferguson  are  to  be  found 
clearly  enough  set  forth  in  his  pages."1  In  his  treatment  of 
biology  as  well  as  that  of  psychology  he  shows  a  grasp  of  the 
subject  and  a  keenness  of  insight  almost  equal  to  Spencer.  In 
his  opposition  to  the  contract  theory  of  natural  law,  he  goes  back 
to  the  obscure  social  instincts  in  man,  where  the  individual  and 
the  community  are  not  yet  contrasted,  and  he  endeavors  to  prove 
from  a  biological  standpoint  that  all  life  is  related ;  in  his  discussion 
of  this  relationship  of  vegetable,  animal  and  human  life,  he 
approaches  very  closely  the  Spencerian  conception  of  biology  and 
interdependence.2  Hoffding  sees  in  this  conception  "one  of  the 
most  important  germs  of  his  thought ;  but  the  mental  atmosphere 
of  the  i8th  century  was  not,  however,  favorable  to  its  further 
development."3  Indeed,  Shaftesbury  was  himself  too  much  under 
the  dominance  of  the  individualism  of  his  age  to  see  its  true 


1.  Characteristics,  vol.  I.     Introduction,  p.  51. 

2.  See  Characteristics,  vol.  I,  pp.  245-246. 

3.  History  of  Modern  Philosophy, — Hoffding. 


38  The  Individual  and  Society 

relation  to  society.  For  although  Shaftesbury  seems  to  have 
almost  equaled  Spencer  in  his  insight  into  biological  relations,  he 
was  not  able,  owing  to  his  individualistic  conception  of  society, 
to  recognize  in  it,  as  Spencer  had,  a  proof  of  the  organic  nature 
of  society,  but  sees  only  in  it  the  negation  of  the  anti-social  in 
the  individual.  Like  Cumberland,  Shaftesbury  spends  his  energy 
and  thought  in  trying  to  prove  what  ought  to  have  been  self- 
evident,  that  man  is  a  social  creature,  and  he  endeavors  through 
his  instincts  and  propensities  to  relate  him  to  a  social  order.  He 
attempts  to  force  the  position  of  Hobbes  by  his  insistence  on  the 
benevolent  or  social  side  of  human  nature.  Unlike  the  moralists 
of  the  i Qth  century,  whose  organic  conception  of  society  and 
social  nature  of  the  race  eliminted  all  necessity  of  proving,  what 
to  them  was  self-evident, — the  social  nature  of  man — or  relating 
the  individual  to  a  social  order  into  which  he  was  born,  Shaftes- 
bury endeavors  not  only  to  show,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come 
to  study  his  view  of  human  nature,  that  man  possesses  altruistic 
as  well  as  egoistic  instincts,  but  that  the  Hobbist  state  of  nature 
was  impossible  owing  to  man's  social  propensities  and  instincts, 
and  the  impossibility  of  his  existence  in  a  state  of  isolation. 

SHAFTESBURY'S  RESTATEMENT  OF  HOBBES'  PSYCHOLOGY. 

In  his  restatement  of  the  Hobbist  psychology,  Shaftesbury 
declares  that  the  conclusions  reached  by  Hobbes  in  his  study  of 
the  passions  are  fallacious,  and  that  his  absolute  egoism  is  not 
born  out  by  the  facts  of  human  experience :  he  therefore  refutes 
this  artificial  psychology  which  reduces  all  social  affections  to 
forms  of  self  affections,1  and  points  out  that  social  and  moral 
affections  are  direct  sources  of  pleasure  apart  from  considerations 
of  self-interest.  In  opposing  the  Hobbist  contention,  that  self- 
love  is  the  only  spring  of  action,  he  shows  that  there  is  a  social 
motive  in  the  will  that  leads  man  to  seek  the  public  good  as  well 
as  his  own  private  good.2  Shaftesbury's  psychology  is  far  in 
advance  of  his  times,  and  in  his  psychological  analysis  of  human 


1.  See  Characteristics,  vol.  I,  pp.  79-8o. 

2.  Ibid,  vol.   i,  pp.  280-282. 


The  Individual  and  Society  39 

nature  he  finds  three  elements  in  man  where  Hobbes  had  only 
discovered  one — self-love.  These  he  classifies  as  (i)  natural  affec- 
tions, which  are  directed  toward  the  welfare  of  society ; (2)  private 
or  self-affections,  which  aim  only  at  private  welfare;(3)  unnatural 
affections,  which  are  useful  neither  to  the  self  nor  to  the  public ; 
these  he  calls  vicious  and  hurtful,  and  therefore  throws  them  out 
as  minus  of  all  pleasure.  Shaftesbury's  position  regarding  the 
unnatural  affections  is  open  to  criticism,  his  dismissal  of  them 
is  too  summarily ;  for  may  there  not  be  a  kind  of  pleasure  even 
in  malice  ?  May  not  the  creature  have  a  kind  of  delight  in  seeing 
the  other  suffer,  that  contributes  in  some  way  to  his  own  happi- 
ness? Shaftesbury  attacks  the  egoistic  interpretation  of  the 
good  by  asserting  the  naturalness  of  the  social  and  moral  affec- 
tions.1 Ethics,  with  Hobbes,  was  purely  a  human  invention  which 
he  found  necessary  in  his  progress  from  the  individual  to  the 
social.  There  are,  for  him,  no  ethical  distinctions  anterior  to  the 
contract,  individual  desire  determines  good  and  evil.2  The  com- 
pact, for  Hobbes,  furnished  the  norm  of  justice  and  the  starting 
point  of  morals.  Shaftesbury  repudiates  this  human  invention 
of  ethics3  and  points  out  that  as  the  social  and  benevolent  instincts 
of  the  human  will  are  part  of  man's  original  stuff,  morality  there- 
fore must  be  coextensive  with  human  existence,  from  which  it  is 
inseparable.  "Faith,  justice,  honesty  and  virtue  must  have  been 
as  early  as  the  state  of  nature  or  they  never  could  have  been  at 
all,  for  a  civil  union  or  confederacy  could  never  make  right  or 
wrong  if  they  subsisted  not  before."4  This  conception  of  goodness 
which  denies  an  immoral  origin  to  the  moral  and  makes  morality 
native  to  man  is  fundamental  to  Shaftesbury's  system  and  enables 
him  in  his  restatement  of  the  Hobbist  psychology  to  show  the 
fallacious  inferences  which  Hobbes  had  deduced  from  the  pas- 
sions, and  to  prove  that  man  in  a  state  of  nature  was  not  a  bellig- 
erent but  a  social  and  moral  creature,  whose  natural  goodness  and 
social  propensities  led  him  to  seek  the  society  of  others,  and  thus 
fulfill  the  function  of  his  nature,  for  "the  end  or  design  of  nature 


1.  Ibid,  vol.  i,  pp.  63-65. 

2.  De  Corpore  Politico,  Part  I,  chap.  4,  sec.  14. 

3.  Characteristics,  vol.  II,  Part  II,  sec.  4,  Ibid,  vol.  I,  p.  73. 

4.  Ibid,  vol.  I,  pp.  73-74. 


4-O  The  Individual  and  Society 

in  man  is  society."1  This  natural  goodness  in  human  nature  which 
seeks  the  inward  harmony  of  the  creature  and  expresses  itself 
in  social  and  benevolent  acts,  gives  rise  to  Shaftesbury's  concep- 
tion of  conscience:  virtue,  for  him,  consists  in  the  harmonious 
blending  of  the  passions  which  produces  in  man  his  greatest  pleas- 
ure. With  Shaftesbury;  goodness  is  harmony,  naturalness  and 
peace;  badness  is  disharmony,  unnaturalness  and  pain.  When  a 
man  therefore  does  anything  to  disturb  the  harmony  of  his  inner 
nature,  he  has  a  sense  of  displeasure  and  discomfort,  which 
Shaftesbury  calls  conscience.  With  him,  conscience,  like  good- 
ness, is  neither  the  result  of  compact  nor  the  fear  of  diety:2  it 
may  exist  apart  from  the  religious  consciousness,  and  is  anteced- 
ent and  contributory  to  it:  it  is  part  of  man's  very  nature  with 
which  he  enters  the  world,  and  is,  therefore,  independent  of 
external  authority,  human  or  divine.  Shaftesbury  does  not  seek 
to  deny  the  presence  or  underestimate  the  value  of  the  self- 
regarding  impulses,  but  only  to  prove  that  the  altruistic  instincts 
are  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  self -regarding  feelings  and  give 
to  them  their  value.  He  does  not  regard  the  private  affections 
as  evil  per  se,  any  more  than  he  regards  the  public  affections 
as  always  productive  of  good.  Either  set  of  affections,  he  says, 
if  developed  to  excess,  would  make  the  creature  vicious.3  The 
self -regarding  affections  in  Shaftesbury's  system  are  as  indispen- 
sable as  the  social  affections  to  secure  the  good  of  the  whole, 
which  consists  for  him,  not  in  the  triumph  of  one  set  over  the 
other,  but  in  the  perfect  balance  and  harmony  between  them  in 
securing  the  public  good.  An  act,  for  Shaftesbury,  is  not  good 
simply  because  it  has  a  beneficial  result,  but  because  it  is  prompted 
by  benevolent  affections  for  the  public  good.  He  finds  it,  there- 
fore, necessary  in  determining  the  moral  quality  of  conduct  to  go 
beyond  the  benefits  derived,  and  get  behind  the  covert  action 
to  the  prompting  affections;  it  is  thus  he  would  test  a  virtuous 
life.  He  calls  that  man  virtuous,  who  controls  and  governs  his 
nature  according  to  principles,  and  consciously  and  deliberately 
chooses  the  best  when  his  inclinations  would  lead  him  to  choose 
the  lesser  good;  'the  greater  the  struggle  the  more  virtuous  the 


1.  Regimen,  49. 

2.  Characteristics,  vol.  I,  p.  267. 

3.  Ibid,  vol.  I,  p.  250 


The  Individual  and  Society  41 

man  if  he  succeeds.'1  (We  have  here  an  anticipation  of  Kant's 
conception  of  virtue.)  In  order  that  man  may  be  guided  in  his 
choice  of  virtue,  he  is  given  an  inward  sense  by  which  he  recog- 
nizes intuitively  the  good  from  the  bad,  just  as  we  recognize  the 
beautiful  from  the  ugly  by  an  inner  aesthetic  sense.2  In  this 
restatement  of  the  Hobbist  psychology,  Shaftesbury  has  given 
to  us  a  psychological  analysis  of  the  human  mind  antipodal  to 
the  Hobbist  psychology.  It  negates  the  anti-social  in  the  in- 
dividual, and  proves  that  man's  social  and  benevolent  affections 
are  as  much  an  original  part  of  human  nature  as  the  self -regarding 
impulses,  that  the  former  makes  possible  a  social  state  in  which, 
through  the  harmonious  blending  of  these  passions,  man  achieves 
virtue  and  secures  the  highest  good. 

SHAFTESBURY'S  VIEW  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 
We  have  seen  that  Shaftbury's  psychology  found  a  social  as 
well  as  an  egoistic  motive  in  the  will.  That  discovery  showed 
him  that  the  "Status  Naturalis"  of  Hobbes  was  a  fiction  of  his 
own  mind;3  for  man's  nature  being  social,  a  war  of  all  against 
all  in  a  state  of  nature  would  be  impossible ;  he  therefore  under- 
takes in  his  refutation  of  the  Hobbist  "Status  Naturalis"  not 
only  to  prove  that  man  is  a  social  being,  but  that  without  society 
he  could  not  exist:  and  he  refers  to  the  helplessness  of  the 
human  infant  as  proof  that  nature  designed  man  for  society. 
"A  human  infant  is  of  all  creatures  the  most  helpless,  weak 
and  infirm.  Does  not  that  very  fact  engage  him  the  more 
strongly  to  society  and  force  him  to  own  that  he  is  purposely  and 
not  by  accident  made  rational  and  social,  and  cannot  otherwise 
increase  or  subsist  than  in  that  social  intercourse  and  community 
which  is  his  natural  state?"4  Man,  as  Shaftesbury  sees  him, 
could  not  live  alone  or  seek  his  own  independent  good  or  even 
the  exclusive  good  of  his  own  state  or  nation,  for  he  is  a  citi- 
zen of  the  world  and  his  interests  are  bound  up  with  the  inter- 
ests of  the  whole  world.  "To  be  a  man  is  to  be  a  citizen  of  the 
world  and  to  prefer  the  interests  of  the  world."5  As  a  further 


1.  Ibid,  vol.  I,  p.  256.    See  "A  System  of  Ethics,"  Paulson,  p.  188,  423. 

2.  See  "Method  of  Ethics,"— Sidgwick,  p.  423,  (1901). 

3.  Characteristics,  vol.  II,  pp.  80-81. 

4.  Regimen,  p.  188.    Characteristics,  vol.  II,  pp.  77,  82. 

5.  Ibid,  p.  n. 


42  The  Individual  and  Society 

proof  of  man's  social  nature  and  fitness  for  society,  Shaftesbury 
points  to  the  gregarious  habits  of  animals.  He  speaks,  for  exam- 
ple, of  "social  animals,"  such  as  bears  and  ants,  which  he  regards 
as  political  animals  and  creatures  of  a  common  stock.1  'If  nature 
has  implanted  in  animals  social  instincts  and  kindly  affection 
toward  their  kind,  can  we  imagine  her  doing  less  for  the  human 
animal  upon  whom  she  has  placed  so  many  marks  of  her  special 
favor.'2  "Will  she  deny  to  man  that  kind  of  society  which  to 
every  beast  of  prey  is  known  to  be  proper  and  natural?"3  Shaftes- 
bury finds  in  human  nature  al  the  ear  marks  of  sociability,  and 
he  declares  that  a  lack  of  sociability  in  man  stamps  him  as 
unnatural  and  abnormal;  there  is  no  appetite  in  man's  nature, 
he  says,  more  natural  to  him  than  that  of  fellowship  with  his 
kind,  for  "if  eating  and  drinking  be  natural  so  is  herding,  if 
any  appetite  of  sense  be  natural  then  the  sense  of  fellowship  is 
natural."4  Shaftesbury  finds  in  man,  as  Grotius  did,  an  "appet- 
itum  sociatum,"  whose  natural  state  was  not  isolated  and  brutish 
but  social  and  benevolent,  to  whom  society  is  as  natural  and  indis- 
pensable as  life  itself.5 

Shaftesbury's  whole  attitude  toward  human  nature  is  as  opti- 
mistic as  Hobbes'  attitude  was  pessimistic.  Human  nature,  for 
Shaftesbury,  is  not  bad  but  good;  badness  is  unnatural  and  is 
the  result  of  "extraordinary  means  and  the  intervention  of  art 
by  which  it  is  suppressed  but  not  conquered;"  for  'even  in  the 
most  vicious  and  illnatured,  there  is  still  some  good'  "which  lies 
sullen  and  ready  to  revolt  on  the  first  occasion."6 

Shaftesbury,  like  Hobbes,  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that 
the  impulses  which  he  found  in  man  indicated  his  condition  in  a 
state  of  nature.  Hobbes,  seeing  nothing  in  the  human  mind  but 
self -regarding  impulses,  premises  a  state  of  nature  of  absolute 
egoism  and  isolation;  Shaftesbury,  who  discovers  in  the  will  a 
social  as  well  as  an  egotistic  motive,  declares  that  humanity  had 
a  social  beginning,  and  sees  in  the  altruistic  tendencies  of  his 


1.  Characteristics,  vol.  II,  p.  292. 

2.  Ibid,  vol.   II,  p.  82. 

3.  Ibid,  vol.  II,  p.  82. 

4.  Ibid,  vol.  I,  p.  74. 

5.  Ibid,  vol.  II,  pp.  80-81,  83.     See  also  The  Principles  of  Natural  and 
Political  Law,— Burlamaqui,  vol.  I,  pp.  37-3?,   (1763). 

6.  Characteristics,  vol.   I,  pp.  260-261.     British  Moralists,   I,  47. 


The  Individual  and  Society  43 

nature,  and  not  in  fear,  the  basis  of  human  society.  In  prov- 
ing his  position,  Shaftesbury  shows  that  man  cannot  exist  with- 
out society.  That  the  individual  good  can  only  be  secured  through 
the  public  good.  That  virtue,  which  is  for  him  the  highest  good, 
is  only  possible  as  the  individual  chooses  the  larger  public  good 
in  preference  to  this  own  lesser  good.  That  isolation,  or  a  desire 
for  it,  indicates  an  abnormal  state  of  mind  and  is  as  unnatural 
as  it  would  be  for  the  hand  to  refuse  to  act  for  the  body  j1  there- 
fore, in  view  of  man's  inherent  moral  nature,  his  social  impulses, 
his  utter  dependence  upon  the  social  order  for  his  existence, 
Shaftesbury  premises  a  social  beginning  for  society  as  against 
the  absolute  egoism  of  Hobbes  and  his  theory  of  the  compact. 

MANDEVILLE'S  RESTATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM. 

In  the  present  attempt  to  relate  the  self  to  society  we  have 
observed  how  Hobbes  sought  to  base  human  life  upon  the  ego 
and  its  private  affections,  as  a  pyramid  resting  upon  its  apex.  In 
opposition  to  this  view,  Cumberland  and  Shaftesbury  attempted 
to  reverse  the  argument  and  thus  base  life  upon  the  social  with 
the  self  as  the  apex.  In  these  two  opponents  of  Hobbes,  egoism 
and  altruism  are  placed  side  by  side  as  though  their  respective 
claims  were  upon  an  equal  footing.  With  the  coming  of  Mande- 
ville,  the  egoistic  argument  received  rehabilitation  and  new 
force;  Mandeville,  like  Hobbes,  assumes  an  egotistic  basis  for 
humanity;  for  him,  as  for  Hobbes,  egoism  is  the  real  spring  of 
human  action.2  "Man  never  exerts  himself  but  when  he  is 
roused  by  self  interest.3  There  is  nothing  more  evident  and 
more  universal  as  the  creature's  love  for  himself."  Mandeville 
sees  in  actions,  which  mankind  generaly  regard  as  disinterested 
acts,  traces  of  self  interest,  and  deduces  from  the  most  altruistic 
deeds  egoistic  impulses.  "The  agent  in  every  case,"  he  says, 
"hopes  to  be  more  than  compensated  for  his  sacrifice  by  the  honor 
which  it  brings  or  by  some  material  good."4 


1.  Regimen,  p.  n. 

2.  Fable  of  the  Bees,   (3rd  ed.,  1724),  p.  199. 

3.  Ibid,  pp.  219,  395,  401. 

4.  Ibid,  pp.  42-43,  p.  67. 


44  The  Individual  and  Society 

Like  Hobbes  and  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  century,  Mandeville 
views  society  from  the  individualistic  point  of  view,  and  like  them 
he  feels  the  necessity,  not  only  of  relating  the  individual  to  the 
social,  but  of  explaining  the  origin  of  the  social  state.  His  per- 
verted conception  of  moral  values  made  him  reject  the  Hobbist 
compact  as  the  origin  of  society,  and  his  repudiation  of  Shaftes- 
bury's  theory  of  social  instincts  made  him  seek  in  man  another 
point  of  contact  through  which  the  ego  and  the  alter  might  be 
related,  and  this  he  finds  in  the  evil  impulses  of  human  nature. 
"What  we  call  evil  in  this  world,  moral  as  well  as  natural,  is  the 
grand  principle  that  makes  us  social."1  He  rejected  the  Shaftes- 
burian  picture  of  man's  goodness  because  it  was  untrue  to  human 
experience;2  and  he  points  out  that  had  man  possessed  in  his 
primitive  state  the  social  and  benevolent  qualities  described  in 
the  "Characteristics"  as  the  source  of  human  society,  he  would 
have  felt  no  need  of  society,  and  therefore  would  have  made  no 
move  to  create  it.  "No  society  could  have  sprung  from  the 
amiable  virtues  and  loving  qualities  of  man."3  Mandeville  turns 
away  from  the  Shaftesburian  origin  of  society,  as  he  does  from 
the  Hobbist  compact,  and  finds  in  man's  baser  nature  and  the 
multiplicity  of  his  desires  the  origin  of  human  society.*  "Not  the 
good  and  amiable,  but  the  bad  and  hateful  qualities  of  man,  his 
imperfections  and  want  of  excellence  with  which  other  creatures 
are  endowed  are  the  first  causes  that  made  man  social  beyond 
the  animals."5 

To  Mandeville  nothing  was  good  or  evil  per  se,  it  was  the 
relation  that  one  thing  sustained  to  another  that  made  it  so  : 
"things  are  only  good  or  evil  in  reference  to  something  else  and 
according  to  the  light  and  position  they  are  placed  in."6  Mande- 
ville, like  Hobbes,  finds  nothing  original  in  virtue,  but  unlike  the 
serious  minded  philosopher  who  sought  to  explain  the  mechanics 
of  society  in  a  fashion  which  should  be  trustworthy,  the  author  of 
the  "Fable  of  the  Bees"  misapplies  the  logic  of  the  "Leviathan" 


1.  Ibid,  p.  428. 

2.  Ibid,  p.  372. 

3.  Ibid,  p.  399- 

4.  Ibid,  p.  369. 
5-  Jbid,  p.  395- 
6.  Ibid,  p.  426. 


The  Individual  and  Society  45 

and  thus  falsely  concludes  that  the  regard  for  virtue  was  not 
even  a  method,  but  only  a  device  on  the  part  of  artful  rulers.1 
He  desumes  all  moral  ideas  from  institutions,  and  denies  to 
virtue  an  original  moral  content.  Virtue,  in  the  sense  of  a  habit 
of  acting  for  the  benefit  of  others,  or  the  conquest  of  our  own 
nature  contrary  to  the  impulse  of  nature,  does  not,  for  Mande- 
ville,  exist ;  and  the  notion  that  it  does  exist  and  that  it  promotes 
the  happiness  and  greatness  of  states,  he  calls  a  useful  delusion, 
propagated  by  politicians  for  the  purpose  of  civil  government. 

The  difference  between  the  egoism  of  Hobbes  and  that  of 
Mandeville,  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that  the  egoism  of 
Hobbes  was  universal  and  as  it  were  sincere,  inasmuch  as  each 
sought  his  own  because  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done.  Hobbes 
was  animated  with  a  sincere  desire  to  relate  the  individual  to 
society,  and  thus  save  him  from  the  evils  of  his  isolation.  In 
doing  this,  however,  he  does  not  resort  to  a  mere  device,  but  seeks 
to  accomplish  his  end  by  a  method  which  saves  him  from  im- 
moralism.  With  Mandeville,  however,  no  such  method  is  pur- 
sued :  egoism  is  for  him  a  principle  employed  by  the  high-minded 
in  their  conflict  with  the  lowly  and  humble.  Where  Hobbes 
advances  the  relativist  standard  of  moral  action,  he  does  so  with 
the  idea  of  supplying  a  sincere  moral  method ;  Mandeville,  how- 
ever, uses  relativism  as  a  device,  by  means  of  which  the  strong 
foisted  certain  principles  of  beneficial  action  upon  the  weak. 
Furthermore,  Mandeville  passes  from  egoism  to  immoralism,  as 
Hobbes  had  passed  from  egoism  to  relativism.  That  is  to  say, 
where  Hobbes  deduces  a  moral  standard,  its  character  can  be 
criticised  only  by  calling  it  inferior  and  low ;  with  Mandeville,  the 
moral  as  such  receives  no  recognition,  its  place  being  taken  by 
an  immoralistic  ideal.  Mandeville  thus  repudiates  the  moral 
standard,  and  like  Nietzsche,  sees  nothing  original  in  virtue ;  it 
is  a  mere  device  by  whch  the  high  minded  seek  to  impose  their 
will  upon  the  lowly  and  humble. 

MANDEVILLE'S  ANTICIPATION  OF  NIETZSCHE. 

There  seems  to  be  in  Mandeville's  conception  of  virtue  an 
anticipation  of  Nietzsche's  transvaluation  of  values ;  vice  and  not 


i.  Value  and  Dignity  of  Human  Life,— Shaw,  pp.  132-133- 


46  The  Individual  and  Society 

virtue  is,  for  Mandeville,  the  source  of  individual  good  and  public 
prosperity. 

Every  part  was  full  of  vice, 

Yet  the  whole  mass  a  paradise. 

Such  were  the  blessings  of  the  state, 

Their  crimes  conspired  to  make  them  great.1 

In  his  origin  of  morality  there  is  a  striking  resemblance  to  the 
slave  morality  of  Nietzsche,  and  his  origin  of  the  judgment  good. 
It  might  not  be  amiss,  at  this  point,  to  institute  a  comparison 
between  Mandeville  and  Nietzsche,  for  indeed  there  is  a  more 
perfect  resemblance  between  them  than  that  evinced  by  Mandeville 
and  Hobbes.  This  distinction  reappears  in  the  "Genealogy  of 
Morals"  where  Nietzsche  contrasts  'the  noble,  the  powerful,  the 
high-situated,  the  high-minded,  with  the  low,  low-minded,  mean 
and  vulgar/  Like  Mandeville,  Nietzsche  does  not  find  in  the 
compact  the  origin  of  virtue.  He  is  not  concerned,  as  Hobbes 
was,  to  guard  the  moral  standard,  and  therefore  he  does  not  need 
to  seek  a  method  in  keeping  with  some  recognized  norm  of 
morality.  Like  Mandeville,  he  repudiates  the  moral  standard, 
and  sets  up  an  immoralistic  ideal.  Goodness  is  not  an  act  of  self- 
denial,  but  rather  of  self-assertion  on  the  part  of  the  powerful 
toward  the  less  powerful.  "The  judgment  good  was  not  in- 
vented/' he  says,  "by  those  to  whom  goodness  was  shown,  on  the 
contrary,  the  good,  that  is  the  noble,  the  powerful  and  high-minded 
felt  and  regarded  themselves  and  their  acting  as  of  first  rank, 
in  contradistinction  to  everything  low,  low-minded,  mean  and 
vulgar.  Out  of  this  pathos  of  distance,  they  took  for  themselves 
the  right  of  creating  values  and  of  coining  names  for  these 
values."2  Mandeville  finds  the  origin  of  the  judgment  good  in 
a  similar  source,  imposed  upon  the  weak  by  the  strong,  upon  the 
lowly  and  humble  by  the  powerful  and  wise.  "It  is  evident," 
says  Mandeville,  "that  the  first  rudiments  of  morality  broached 
by  skillful  politicians  to  render  men  useful  to  each  other  as  well 
as  tractable,  were  chiefly  contrived  that  the  ambitious  might  reap 
the  more  benefit  from,  and  govern  vast  numbers  of  them  with  the 
greater  ease  and  security."3  Mandeville  thus  seeks  in  his  psy- 


1.  Fable  of  the  Bees,  p.  9. 

2.  A  Genealogy  of  Morals.— Nietzsche,  pp.  19-20,  (1907). 

3.  Ibid,  p.  33. 


The  Individual  and  Society  47 

chology  to  show,  as  against  Shaftesbury,  that  the  whole  life 
and  charm  of  the  social  system  rests  solely  upon  the  struggle 
which  self-seeking  individuals  carry  on  in  their  own  interest.  The 
motive  power  of  civilization,  he  holds,  is  solely  egoism,  and  there- 
fore, we  must  not  be  surprsed  if  civilization  displays  its  activity, 
not  by  heightening  the  moral  qualities,  but  only  by  refining  and 
disguising  egoism.  For  Mandeville,  as  for  Nietzsche,  civilization 
hinders  rather  than  advances  man's  happiness.  The  individual's 
happiness,  he  says,  is  as  little  enhanced  by  civilization  as  his 
morality.  Mandeville  does  not  find  in  the  development  of  society 
or  "good  of  the  whole"  the  individual  good  that  Shaftesbury 
found,  but  on  the  contrary,  the  development  of  the  whole  is  ac- 
complished, he  says  only  at  the  cost  of  the  morality  and  happiness 
of  the  individual.  Individual  happiness,  for  Mandeville,  is  not 
the  product  of  the  "harmonious  blending  of  the  passions,"  but  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  ego.  Society,  for  him  as  for  Nietzsche, 
stands  in  the  way  of  individual  development  and  morality,  and 
the  cunning  device  of  rulers  prevents  him  from  being  himself 
and  living  his  own  life. 

In  our  comparison  of  Mandeville  and  Nietzsche  there  is  found 
a  close  resemblance  between  them  in  their  conception  of  man 
and  his  place  in  society.  Both  writers  find  the  origin  of  morality 
in  self-assertion.  The  self-denial  that  made  the  compact  pos- 
sible for  Hobbes,  and  with  it  the  invention  of  the  concept  good, 
is  repudiated  by  Mandeville  and  Nietzsche.  Furthermore,  they 
see  in  the  present  standard  of  morality  the  real  source  of  hypoc- 
risy, and  in  society  the  chief  hindrance  to  self-realization,  there- 
fore they  seek  through  an  immoralistic  ideal  the  freedom  and 
development  of  the  ego. 

REFUTATION  OF  MANDEVILLE'S  EGOISM. 

Although  the  brutal  egoism  of  Mandeville  which  resolved  all 
human  affection  into  self-love,  and  virtue,  into  a  mere  device  on 
the  part  of  artful  rulers,  did  not  become  the  center  of  any  formal 
controversy  apart  from  the  main  current  of  discussion,  never- 
theless it  was  met  by  several  moralists  of  marked  ability,  among 
whom  were  Law,  Hutcheson,  Berkeley  and  Brown.  William 


48  The  Individual  and  Society 

Law,  who  pointed  out  the  paradoxes  which  abound  in  Mande- 
ville's work,  presents  the  most  detailed,  and  according  to  Les- 
lie Stephen,  the  ablest  refutation  of  Mandeville's  theories  of  any 
of  his  contemporaries.  Law  attacks  principally  the  Mandevillian 
origin  and  relativity  of  virtue.  He  denies  that  an  act  is  vicious 
or  selfish  because  it  is  natural,  and  declares  that  an  action  is 
none  the  less  virtuous  because  we  are  prompted  to  it  by  natural 
instincts,  or  by  acquired  habits.1  He  assails  Mandeville's  theory 
of  relativity,  and  repudiates  his  statement  "that  virtue  and  vice 
are  not  permanent  realities,"  but  vary  as  other  fashions,  and  are 
subject  to  no  other  law  than  that  of  fancy  and  opinion.  Law 
asserts  with  great  vigor,  that  moral  virtue  is  founded  on  the 
immutable  relations  of  things,  in  the  perfection  and  attributes 
of  God,  and  not  in  the  pride  and  craft  of  cunning  politicians;2 
and  he  maintains  that  you  might  as  well  ascribe  man's  erect  posi- 
tion to  the  cunning  flattery  of  politicians,  as  his  virtue.3  Brown 
makes  a  similar  attack  upon  Mandeville's  relativity  and  declares 
that  virtue  and  vice  are  permanent  realities  "whose  nature  is 
fixed,  certain  and  unvariable."*  He  also  shows  that  the  author 
of  the  "Fable  of  the  Bees"  is  an  unsound  economist,  for  waste, 
he  says,  cannot  contribute  to  the  public  good,  nor  theft  bring 
prosperity  to  the  commonwealth.  Indeed,  "it  is  very  evident  that 
the  only  essential  consequence  of  private  vice  is  public  misery."5 

Berkeley's  assault  on  Mandeville  in  his  "Minute  Philosopher," 
is  not  so  much  against  his  cynical  egoism  or  his  relativistic  moral- 
ity, as  it  is  against  his  false  economical  theories  which  make  vice 
a  public  benefit.  He  points  out  that  pride,  instead  of  being  a 
benefit,  is  prejudicial  to  a  community,  and  immorality  of  all  kinds 
is  ruinous  to  the  constitution  of  the  individual,  and  destructive  to 
the  state.  No  commonwealth,  he  maintains,  can  profit  by  the 
extravagance  and  wastefulness  of  its  citizens.  Virtue,  he  says, 
is  not  a  mere  fashion  or  device,  but  implies  obedience  to  the  laws 
upon  which  man's  physical  and  spiritual  health  depend. 

These  moralists,  in  their  refutation  of  Mandeville's  theories, 


1.  Law's  Works,  vol.  II,  p.  20. 

2.  Ibid,  p.  24. 

3.  Ibid,  p.  20. 

4.  Essays  on  the  Characteristics, — John  Brown,  (1751),  Essay  II,  sec.  4. 

5.  Ibid,  sec.  5. 


The  Individual  and  Society  49 

directed  their  attack  principally  against  his  mechanical  inven- 
tion of  ethics,  which  reduced  all  virtue  to  a  mere  device  as  vari- 
able  as  the  fashions,  and  against  his  theory  of  economics,  which 
would  build  up  a  strong  and  prosperous  state  on  the  vices  rather 
than  the  virtues  of  men.  With  Hutcheson,  however,  we  have 
the  point  of  attack  directed  more  against  his  absolute  egoism, 
against  his  assertion  that  all  human  action  may,  in  the  last 
analysis,  be  reduced  to  selfishness,  and  virtue  to  hypocrisy.1  This 
concepton  of  human  nature,  Hutcheson  repudiated  by  his  asser- 
tion of  disinterested  benevolence. 

HUTCHESON'S  IDEAL  OF  DISINTERESTED  JUDGMENT. 

In  their  apology  for  the  social  instinct,  whose  presence  had 
been  denied  by  Hobbes  and  Mandeville,  Cumberland  and  Shaftes- 
bury  had  done  little  more  than  to  assert  the  possibility  of  an 
altruistic  motive  in  the  human  will ;  Hutcheson  advances  the  social 
argument  by  placing  it  up  on  an  intellectualistic  basis,  whence  he 
is  able  to  affirm,  not  only  the  presence  of  a  social  motive  in  the 
will,  but  a  social  principle  of  judgment  in  the  intellect.  Indeed, 
this  was  the  onus  probandi  in  the  Hutchesonian  ethics.  In  opposi- 
tion to  Mandeville's  assertion  that  all  moral  acts  are  judged  in  the 
light  of  private  interest,  Hutcheson  claims  that  man  is  capable  of 
a  disinterested  point  of  view  in  ethical  judgment.2  If  men  were 
incapable  of  such  a  judgment  as  Mandeville  and  Hobbes  main- 
tained, why  then,  he  asks,  do  they  rejoice  at  the  overthrow  of  a 
tyrant  when  such  an  exigency  is  prejudicial  to  their  own  interest?8 
Why  do  we  admire  the  act  of  Cordus,  from  whom  we  reap  no 
benefit,  more  than  the  act  of  the  miser  whose  gold  has  been  of 
great  advantage  to  us,  if  we  are  incapable  of  disinterested  moral 
judgment ;  and  why  do  we  praise  a  gallant  enemy  who  is  very 
pernicious  to  us,  if  there  is  nothing  in  all  this  but  an  opinion  of 
advantage  ?4  In  opposition  to  Mandeville's  contention  that  all  our 
actions  have  their  source  in  self -love,  Hutcheson  maintained  that 


1.  See  "Types  of  Ethical  Theory," — Martineau,  pp.  518  and  538. 

2.  An  Inquiry  Concerning  Moral  Good  and  Evil,  pp.  125-127. 

3.  Ibid,  pp.  117-118. 

4.  Ibid,  p.  124,  p.  119. 


50  The  Individual  and  Society 

many  of  our  actions  spring  solely  from  a  regard  for  others,  and 
that  in  fact  this  is  the  case  with  all  those  of  which  on  reflection 
we  approve.  He  goes  even  a  step  further  and  says  that  the  only 
quality  either  in  our  own  actions  or  in  those  of  others  which 
commends  itself  to  our  approbation  is  their  benevolence  or  unself- 
ishness. In  his  essay  on  the  passions  and  affections  he  declares 
that  there  is  absolutely  no  doubt  that  men  desire  the  happiness 
of  others  when  they  have  no  thought  that  such  happiness  will  in 
any  way  be  advantageous  to  themselves.1  Hutcheson  found  in 
every  day  experience  many  familiar  instances  of  human  conduct 
that  could  not  be  satisfactorily  explained  on  any  other  basis  save 
that  of  disinterested  affections  in  the  will.  He  could  see  no 
reason  why  a  desire  to  promote  the  public  good  regardless  of 
personal  interest  should  not  be  as  much  a  real  element  of  our 
nature  as  any  other  desire.  Indeed  he  saw  in  every  walk  of  life 
empirical  proof  of  its  existence.  He  found  men  continually 
giving  themselves  up  to  tasks  and  ideals  which  could  not  have 
been  prompted  by  self  interest;  and  his  knowledge  of  human 
nature  convinced  him  that  almost  everyone  takes  an  interest,  more 
or  less,  in  matters  which  in  no  way  affect  themselves,  and  are 
glad  or  sorry  at  this  or  that  victory  or  defeat,  though  it  does  not 
affect  in  any  way  their  own  personal  interest.  Hutcheson  denies 
the  claims  of  Mandeville,  that  we  seek  virtue  because  of  the 
concomitant  pleasure  and  maintains  that  if  we  pursue  virtue  be- 
cause it  is  pleasant,  then  before  we  resolved  to  pursue  it,  there 
must  have  been  a  prior  sense  of  virtue  antecedent  to  any  idea  of 
advantage  upon  which  the  knowledge  of  this  advantage  is  found- 
ed. Furthermore,  some  virtue  or  the  practicing  of  some  virtuous 
affections  such  as  sorrow,  anger,  or  compassion  is  not  pleasant. 
'It  is  not  therefore,  says  Hutcheson,  motives  of  self-love  or  inter- 
est, as  the  author  of  the  "Fable  of  the  Bees"  affirms,  but  the 
frame  of  our  nature  which  determines  us  to  be  thus  affected  and 
approves  our  being  so/'2  He  further  illustrates  this  social  and 
benevolent  motive  in  our  will  by  pointing  to  the  fact  that  the 
imminence  of  death  often  intensifies  rather  than  diminishes  a 
man's  desire  for  the  welfare  of  those  he  loves,  adding  as  con- 


1.  Essay  on  the  Passions  and  Affections,  sec.  I,  p.  20,  (1742). 

2.  Ibid,  pp.  155-156. 


The  Individual  and  Society  51 

firmatory  evidence  of  this  disinterested  affection,  that  the  sympathy 
and  admiration  commonly  felt  for  self  sacrifice  depends  on  the 
belief  that  it  is  something  different  from  a  refined  self-seeking. 
He  meets  the  argument  of  Mandeville,  that  'a  man's  love  for  his 
child  is  prompted  by  self  interest/  by  showing  that  a  parent's 
love  for  his  child  is  antecedent  to  any  conjunction  of  interest — 
the  cause  and  not  the  effect ;  that  nature,  in  short,  determines  him 
to  have  affection  for  them  without  any  thought  of  personal  ad- 
vantage ;  and  this  same  motive,  though  in  a  lesser  degree,  impels 
him  to  seek  the  public  good.1  For  Hutcheson  as  for  Cumberland 
and  Shaftesbury,  benevolence,  which  for  him  is  synonomous  with 
disinterested  affection,  is  not  an  acquired  habit  but  an  innate  motive 
of  the  human  will.2  He  finds  that  man  is  not  only  a  social 
creature  but  a  creature  capable  of  disinterested  moral  judgment 
and  moral  acts.  He  repudiates  Mandeville's  immoralistic  ideal 
of  virtue  and  defends  an  original  sense  of  virtue  antecedent  to  all 
interest.  He  contended  for  neither  abstract  rectitude  nor  concrete 
feeling,  but  allied  himself  with  a  view  of  virtue  as  something 
independent  of  private  interest,  but  at  one  with  the  well-being  of 
humanity.3  This  is  finely  expressed  by  saying  "whence  this  secret 
chain  between  each  person  and  mankind  ?  How  is  my  interest  con- 
nected with  the  most  distant  parts  of  it?  and  yet  I  must  admire 
actions  which  are  beneficial  to  them  and  love  the  author,  whence 
this  love,  compassion,  indignation  and  hatred  toward  even  feigned 
characters  in  the  most  distant  nations,  according  as  they  appear 
kind,  faithful  and  compassionate,  or  of  opposite  dispositions 
toward  their  imaginary  contemporaries.  If  there  is  no  "moral 
sense,"  which  makes  rational  actions  appear  beautiful  or  de- 
formed; if  all  approbation  be  from  the  interest  of  the  approver 
'what's  Hecuba  to  us  or  we  to  Hecuba?  "*  Hutcheson  does  not 
agree  with  Shaftesbury  in  making  virtue  the  result  of  the  har- 
monious blending  of  our  egoistic  and  altruistic  impulses.  Such 
a  vew,  he  claims,  is  contradicted  by  the  unconditional  preference 
which  our  judgment  always  gives  to  sympathy,  above  all  selfish 
inclinations.  'Our  approval  is  won,  not  by  a  harmony  among  the 


1.  Ibid,  pp.  160-161,  p.  218. 

2.  Ibid,  p.  239. 

3.  Value  and  Dignity  of  Human  Life, — Shaw,  p.  223. 

4.  Inquiry,  pp.  115-116. 


52  The  Individual  and  Society 

different  affections,  but  by  the  predominance  of  purely  disinter- 
ested love  over  all  other  impulses.'  This  victory  of  the  altruistic 
impulses  can  occur  only  with  the  aid  of  a  peculiar  emotion  which 
he  calls  the  moral  sense,  an  innate  sense  in  man  which  associates 
itself  with  every  benevolent  instinct  in  him.1  For  Hutcheson,  as 
for  Shaftesbury,  though  perhaps  in  a  more  profound  sense  "the 
moral  sense"  is  a  feeling  within  us  of  immediate  pleasure  on  the 
perception  of  certain  acts  and  affections,  and  a  feeling  of  im- 
mediate displeasure  on  the  perception  of  their  contraries,  and  has 
been  planted  in  our  nature  as  a  guide  to  benevolence  and  virtue. 
It  is,  therefore,  in  itself  a  proof  of  a  disinterested  motive  in 
the  will  and  of  a  social  principle  of  judgment  in  the  intellect.  Such 
a  view  of  human  nature  disclaims  and  rejects  the  artificial  and 
utilitarian  ethics  of  Mandeville  and  Hobbes,2  and  finds  the  source 
of  ethics  in  the  very  nature  of  man.  For  Hutcheson  as  for  Cum- 
berland and  Shaftesbury,  man  enters  life  with  a  social  nature,  and 
an  intellect  capable  of  forming  disinterested  ethical  judgments. 
He  finds  in  the  human  will  a  benevolent  motive,  and  sees  in  the 
shame  that  follows  a  selfish  act,  and  the  condemnation  of  man- 
kind, of  conduct  prejudicial  to  others  besides  the  actor,  proof  of 
man's  original  goodness  and  social  virtues. 

THE  REAPPEARANCE  OF  THE  SOCIAL. 

Thus  we  find  in  Hutcheson's  disinterested  benevolence  the 
reappearance  of  the  social,  with  an  added  emphasis  upon  the 
altruistic  nature  of  man,  which  to  Hutcheson,  is  coterminous  with 
human  existence.  Like  Cumberland  and  Shaftesbury  he  repudi- 
ated the  anti-social  views  of  Hobbes  and  Mandeville,  and  en- 
deavored to  prove  not  only  that  there  is  a  social  motive  in  the 
will,  but  that  there  is  also  a  social  principle  of  judgment  in  the 
intellect.  From  an  a  posteriori  point  of  view  he  finds  that  the 
absolute  egoism  of  Hobbes  and  Mandeville  is  at  variance  with 
the  facts  of  human  experience,  and  that  a  state  of  nature  such  as 
Hobbes  had  described  would  be  impossible  with  human  nature 


1.  Ibid,  p.  200. 

2.  Ibid,  pp.  136,  166. 


The  Individual  and  Society  53 

constituted  as  it  is.  "He  found  in  the  record  of  nature  many  a 
passage  which  the  key  of  'sensation  and  reflection'  failed  to  un- 
lock: and  boldly  replaced  among  the  primary  data  of  humanity 
numerous  springs  of  action  and  modes  of  feeling,  which  neither 
interest  nor  reason  could  be  shown  to  evolve."1 

He  agrees  with  Shaftesbury  that  man  could  not  exist  outside  of 
society,  but  he  goes  further  than  the  author  of  the  "Character- 
istics," in  his  emphasis  upon  man's  capacity  for  disinterested 
benevolence.  He  finds  in  mans'  social  instincts,  as  did  Shaftes- 
bury, the  origin  and  perpetuity  of  the  social  state,  and  sees  in 
"the  social  virtues,  the  foundation  of  all  apprehended  excellen- 
cies."2 He  goes  beyond  his  predecessors  in  his  conception  of  the 
dignity  and  value  of  human  nature,  and  sees  in  it  the  possibility 
to  rise  above  all  hedonic  interest,  though  he  does  not,  however, 
always  maintain  that  high  ideal.  Hutcheson  is  interested  not  in 
the  individual  as  such,  nor  in  the  social  as  such,  but  in  the  nobility 
of  human  nature  and  its  power  to  rise  above  interest.  Although 
Hutcheson's  conception  of  human  nature  is  individualistic,  like 
that  of  his  predecessors,  his  individual  is  however,  a  social  self 
which  has  gained  in  dignity  and  worth  and  which  is  capable  of 
rising  above  personal  interests,  and  not  only  approving,  but  per- 
forming acts  for  the  public  good,  which  are  prejudicial  to  its  own 
private  interests. 

BUTLER'S  MODIFIED  EGOISM. 

We  have  seen  in  the  emphasis  placed  by  the  Hutchesonian 
ethics  on  the  disinterested  affections,  a  repudiation  of  the  egoism 
of  Hobbes  and  Mandeville.  Butler  following  the  Shaftesburian 
view  of  man's  nature,  emphasizes  still  further  the  social,  and 
corrects  the  exclusive  egoism  of  Hobbes,  by  pointing  out  first,  that 
unselfish  social  affections  and  impulses  are  actual  constituents  of 
human  nature,  and  secondly,  that  conscience,  though  not  always 
obeyed,  yet  provides  a  motive  tending  to  urge  a  man  to  sacrifice 
his  own  immediate  interests  for  the  public  good. 


1.  Types  of  Ethical  Theory, — Martineau,  p.  518. 

2.  An  Inquiry  Concerning  Moral  Good  and  Evil,  sec.  3. 


54  The  Individual  and  Society 

Butler  looked  upon  the  unregulative  ego  of  the  Hobbist  type  as 
nothing  but  a  Psychological  chimaera;1  and  found  sufficient  a 
posteriori  proof  in  every  day  life  to  refute  the  ethics  of  the 
"Leviathan,"  and  establish  the  thesis  that  the  social  affections 
are  no  less  natural  than  the  appetites  and  desires  which  tend 
more  directly  to  self-preservation.2  "We  find  that  there  are  as 
real  and  the  same  kind  of  indications  in  human  nature,  that  we 
were  made  for  society  and  to  do  good  to  our  fellow  creatures, 
as  that  we  were  intended  to  care  for  our  own  life  and  health  and 
private  good:  and  the  same  objection  may  be  raised  against  the 
one  assertion  as  against  the  other.3  The  reality  of  the  social  affec- 
tions was,  for  Butler,  as  indisputable  as  human  nature  itself, 
indeed,  he  could  not  conceive  of  the  one  without  the  other.  The 
very  fact,  he  argues,  that  men  try  to  point  out  a  selfish  motive 
in  the  will,  is  itself  a  proof  that  a  social  motive  exists  there : 
'does  not  this  very  disapproval  manifestly  imply  a  belief  that 
man's  feelings  may  be,  indeed  ought  to  be  other  than  selfish ;  for 
how  can  we  contemn  a  person  for  having  selfish  feelings  only, 
if  human  nature  admits  no  other?'  The  common  application  of 
the  term  selfish  implies,  as  Whewell  points  out  "a  moral  dis- 
approbation as  well  as  a  metaphysical  analysis."4 

Butler  accepts  the  premises  laid  down  by  his  predecessors  re- 
garding the  social  nature  of  the  human  will,  and  agrees  with  the 
conclusions  that  man  is  a  social  animal,  whose  propensities  and 
instincts  lead  him  to  society  and  to  seek  its  good;  and  he  shows 
the  falsity  of  the  Hobbist  war  of  all  against  all  by  proving  that 
our  nature  even  on  its  sensible  side  relates  us  to  others,  since  we 
have  affections  within  us  which  rest  on  the  good  of  others  as  their 
object.  He  is,  therefore,  in  perfect  accord  with  the  conclusions 
reached  by  the  aesthetic  intuitionists  regarding  man's  benevolent 
propensities,  and  finds,  as  they  did,  that  there  is  a  natural  principle 
of  benevolence  in  man,  which  aims  directly  at  the  good  of  others 
and  finds  its  satisfaction  only  in  attaining  that  good.5  Butler  feels, 


1.  History  of  Ethics, — Sidgwick,  p.  193. 

2.  Sermon  I,  sec.  9,  Gladstone  ed. 

3.  Ibid,  sec.  4. 

4.  Sermon  II,  sec.  4. 

5.  Sermon  IX,  sec.  7. 


The  Individual  and  Society  55 

however,  that  his  predecessors,  especially  Hutcheson,  in  their 
eagerness  to  prove  that  man  is  a  social  creature  and  that  he  is 
capable  of  disinterested  moral  judgments  and  acts,  have  lost  sight 
of  the  place  that  the  ego  holds  in  human  life,  and  fearing  lest 
man's  neglect  of  his  own  interest  may  endanger  his  egohood,  he 
therefore  pleads  for  a  reasonable  self-love.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  cool  self-love  and  selfishness  are,  for  Butler, 
two  very  different  principles  of  human  nature,  and  are  by  no 
means  identical  terms.  Selfishness  is  a  passion  that  may  lead 
the  creature  to  its  own  ruin ;  while  a  reasonable  self-love  leads  it 
to  act  always  for  its  own  good  and  may  at  times  demand  for  the 
performance  of  such  an  act,  all  the  self-abnegation  which  even  a 
Stoic  would  require.  The  cool  self-love  of  the  Butlerian  type 
resembles  more  the  self  realization  of  the  I9th  century  than  it 
does  the  egoism  of  the  Hobbist  character.  Butler's  ego  is  a  social 
ego  that  is  more  in  danger  of  neglecting  the  interest  of  its  own 
nature  than  it  is  that  of  the  public.  Unlike  Hobbes  and  Mande- 
ville,  Butler  believed  that  the  ego  was  weak  and  needed  to  be 
strengthened,  and  his  defence  of  the  ego  is  scarcely  less  startling 
than  that  of  a  Stirner  or  a  Nietzsche.  "If  it  be  said,"  he  urges, 
"that  there  are  persons  in  the  world  who  are  without  natural 
affections  toward  their  fellow  creatures,  there  are  likewise  in- 
stances of  persons  without  the  common  natural  affections  to 
themselves  .  .  .  men  as  often  contradict  that  part  of  their 
nature  which  respects  self  as  they  contradict  that  part  of  it  which 
respects  society;1  and  it  is  on  this  ground  of  the  lack  of  egoism 
that  Butler  contends  for  a  cool  or  reasonable  self-love. 

Butler  saw  in  the  subordinate  place  given  to  the  ego  in  the 
Hutchesonian  ethics  an  undue  emphasis  placed  on  the  social  pro- 
pensities, which  infringed  upon  the  rights  of  the  ego,  whose 
weakness  to  assert  its  rights  endangered  its  egohood;  he  there- 
fore seeks  to  place  the  ego  on  a  level  with  the  alter.  In  the  two 
principles  of  self-love  and  benevolence,  Butler  recognizes  the 
fundamental  rational  character  of  the  egoistic  and  altruistic  ten- 
dencies of  human  nature,  and  feeling  that  an  injustice  has  been 
done  to  the  former,  he  strives  in  his  first  sermon  to  place  it  on  a 
footing  of  regulative  equality  with  the  latter;  he  would  thus 


i.  Sermon  I,  sec.  13-14. 


56  The  Individual  and  Society 

strengthen  the  principle  of  reasonable  self-love  by  giving  to  it  a 
certain  aspect  of  the  moral  faculty,  and  further  advance  its  inter- 
est by  associating  it  with  conscience  and  assigning  to  it  a  regula- 
tive equality  with  conscience  itself :  "reasonable  self-love  and 
conscience  are  the  chief  or  superior  principles  in  the  nature  of 
man ;  because  an;  action  may  be  suitable  to  this  nature,  though  all 
other  principles  be  violated;  but  becomes  unsuitable  if  either  of 
these  are."1  Thus  we  find  though  Butler  raises  conscience  to  a 
commanding  position,  he  does  not  fail  in  his  attempt  to  strengthen 
the  ego,  to  place  personal  self-love  on  the  same  basis.  He  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  say,  as  Sidgwick  points  out,  that  should  a  con- 
flict arise  between  them,  conscience  would  have  to  give  way.2 
In  his  sermon  "Upon  Love  of  our  Neighbor"  he  seems  to  justify 
such  an  inference,  for  he  there  makes  a  statement  which  is  still 
more  sweeping  in  its  exaltation  of  reasonable  self-love  than  the 
one  at  the  conclusion  of  Sermon  III.,  quoted  above;  there  cool 
self-love  was  apparently  viewed  as  a  principle  coordinate  with 
conscience,  and  benevolence  seemed  to  be  excluded  from  the  dual 
sovereignty;  here,  however,  not  only  benevolence  but  conscience 
itself  is  apparently  made  subordinate  to  the  principle  of  reasonable 
self-love.  "Let  it  be  allowed,  though  virtue  or  moral  rectitude 
does  indeed  consist  in  affection  to,  and  pursuit  of,  what  is  right 
and  good  as  such;  yet,  that  when  we  sit  down  in  a  cool  hour  we 
can  neither  justify  to  ourselves  this  or  any  other,  till  we  are 
convinced  that  it  will  be  for  our  happiness,  or  at  least  not  contrary 
to  it."3  Although  Butler  has  been  endeavoring  to  put  increasing 
emphasis  upon  the  importance  of  reasonable  self-love,  it  is  not  his 
intention  to  reduce  virtue  to  self-interest  and  individual  happiness, 
as  the  above  quotation  would  seem  to  suggest,  but  in  giving  to 
reasonable  self-love  the  position  he  assigns  to  it,  he  would  impress 
upon  humanity  the  claims  of  the  ego  and  the  danger  to  society 
itself,  if  these  claims  are  ignored.  He  would  in  this  way  strength- 
en the  ego  and  give  to  it  an  equal  place  with  that  of  benevolence, 
for  in  the  harmony  of  these  two  fundamental  principles  of  benev- 
olence and  reasonable  self-love,  Butler  recognizes  the  highest 


1.  Sermon  III,  sec.  13. 

2.  See  Method  of  Ethics, — Sidgwick,  p.  366. 

3.  Sermon  II,  sec.  21. 


The  Individual  and  Society  57 

good  for  the  self  and  the  public:  and  by  this  conception  of  a 
social  self  and  a  common  interest  he  transcends  the  dualism  of 
interested  and  distinterested  action,  and  finds  in  this  common  inter- 
est, the  true  point  of  contact  with  other  selves ;  for  true  self-love 
always  looks  to  others,  and  true  benevolence  always  looks  to  self, 
and  virtue  as  the  end  of  life  is  a  good  so  complete  that  all  indi- 
viduals alike  find  in  it  their  common  good  and  happiness.  Reason- 
able self-love  must  not  only  have  the  same  end  as  benevolence, 
but  it  must  include  benevolence,  and  to  reverse  the  proposition, 
benevolence  must  include  cool  self-love. 

2.  THE  CULMINATION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  IN  THE  i8TH  CEN- 
TURY IN  HUME. 

In  Hume  we  reach  not  only  the  culmination  of  the  social  in  the 
individual  begun  by  Cumberland  and  Shaftesbury,  and  the  nega- 
tion of  the  anti-social  in  the  race,  but  in  his  philosophy  the 
critical  examination  of  knowledge  begun  by  Locke,  reaches  its 
culminating  point  in  the  English  school  of  the  i8th  century. 
H,ume  instituted  an  examination  into  the  two  concepts  which 
formed  the  foundation  of  all  earlier  philosophy — the  concepts  of 
substance  and  causality — which  neither  Locke  nor  Berkeley  had 
seriously  attacked,  and  he  denies  the  validity  of  both  concepts. 
Following  Locke,  Hume,  in  his  epistomology,  bases  all  knowledge 
upon  experience  and  gives  to  reason,  which  he  calls  the  salve  of 
our  passions,  but  a  very  subordinate  place :  reason,  he  says,  com- 
bines ideas  but  gives  no  knowledge  of  reality.1  In  his  attitude 
toward  God,  substance  and  causality,  Hume  assumes  a  sceptical 
attitude.  His  scepticism,  however,  resembles  more  the  positivism 
of  Comte,  whom  he  seems  to  anticipate,2  than  it  does  the  intellect- 
ual nihilism  of  Gorgias,  whose  scepticism  would  make  knowl- 
edge impossible.  Although  Hume  does  not  deny  the  existence  of 
God,  his  final  word  regarding  the  deity  is  one  of  doubt  and 
uncertainty.  His  inability  to  find  anything  in  the  mind  except 
sensations  made  him  sceptical  regarding  the  self.  "When  I 


1.  See  Treatise,  Bk.  II,  part  III,  sec.  3. 

2.  See  Problems  of  Human  Life.    Euchen,  p.  422. 


-^i         < 


58  The  Individual  and  Society 

enter,  he  says,  most  intimately  into  what  I  call  myself,  I  always 
stumble  on  some  particular  perception  or  another  of  heat  or  cold, 
light  or  shade,  love  or  hate,  pain  or  pleasure/'1  and  consequently 
he  concluded  that  what  we  call  the  self  or  personality,  was  noth- 
ing but  a  collection  of  different  perceptions  which  precede  each 
other  rapidly  and  are  in  a  perpetual  flux  and  movement.  Believing 
as  he  did  that  all  our  ideas  were  derived  from  impressions,  and 
finding  no  impression  corresponding  to  the  concept  of  substance 
he  therefore  declared  that  the  idea  of  substance  was  invalid.  "We 
immediately  perceive  only  particular  qualities  bound  together 
more  or  less  firmly,  but  no  substance."  It  is,  however,  in  estab- 
lishing the  problem  of  causality  that  his  greatest  achievement  in 
philosophy  consists;  here  Hume's  scepticism  reaches  its  highest 
point,  for  it  questions  the  validity  of  all  knowledge  which  lies 
beyond  the  given  impressions.  Hume  would  answer  the  queston 
"is  not  the  validity  of  causal  relations  founded  in  experiences," 
by  declaring  that  experience  only  shows  us  that  one  event  follows 
another  but  does  not  exhibit  any  causal  relation,  effects,  he  held, 
were  entirely  distinct  from  causes  and  were  not  contained  the 
one  in  the  other.  "The  motion  of  one  billiard  ball  is  altogether 
distinct  from  the  motion  of  another  billiard  ball."  It  is  custom 
alone  that  leads  us  to  associate  a  certain  cause  with  a  certain  effect, 
for  after  we  have  frequently  observed  one  phenomenon  following 
another  we  involuntarily  expect  the  former  the  next  time  the 
latter  occurs ;  but  this  is  custom,  says  Hume,  and  does  not  justify 
us  in  concluding  from  the  past  to  the  future.  The  fact  that  up 
to  the  present  we  have  always  observed  that  fire  burns,  does  not 
prove  a  causal  relation  between  fire  and  burn ;  there  may  come  a 
time  when  fire  will  not  burn. 

This  sceptical  attitude  which  Hume  assumed  toward  dogmatic 
metaphysics  is  wholly  abandoned  by  him  in  his  moral  philosophy : 
here,  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of  morality,  he  shows  himself  as 
the  empiricist  only,  not  the  sceptic,  and  maintains  that  the  laws 
of  human  nature  are  capable  of  just  as  exact  empirical  investiga- 
tion and  scientific  proof  as  those  of  external  nature,  and  there- 


i.  Treatise,  Bk.  I,  part  4. 


The  Individual  and  Society  59 

fore,  bases  his  ethics  on  feeling1  instead  of  reason,  which  he  elimin- 
ates in  the  sphere  of  practice  just  as  he  had  curtailed  her  rights, 
in  favor  of  custom  and  instinct,  in  the  theoretical  field.2  In  his 
earlier  work — the  "Treatise" — this  feeling  is  egoistic,  but  in  his 
later  and  more  mature  ethics — the  "Enquiry" — it  is  social.  When 
Hume  wrote  his  "Treatise"  he  was  evidently  in  sympathy  with 
the  views  of  his  age  regarding  the  origin  of  society,  and  in  his 
treatment  of  the  natural  and  artificial  virtues,  was  doubtless  in- 
fluenced by  the  individualistic  conception  of  society  which  so 
dominated  the  ethics  of  the  i8th  century,  for  he  seems  to  base 
his  distinctions  between  them  on  the  erroneous  idea  that  men 
were  once  in  a  state  of  nature  when  there  was  no  custom,  tradi- 
tion or  education,  and  that  virtues  in  that  state  were  natural,  being 
spontaneous.3  This  view,  however,  he  appears  to  repudiate  in  his 
"Enquiry,"  for  he  omits  the  distinctions  between  the  virtues  alto- 
gether, and  declares  that  all  disputes  about  the  meaning  of 
artificial  and  natural  are  merely  verbal.4  Furthermore,  in  his 
"Treatise"  he  does  not  admit  that  altruism  is  native  to  man  or 
that  he  can  have  anything  but  an  egotistic  love  for  others,5  but 
in  his  "Enquiry"  he  assumes  not  only  a  certain  degree  of  native 
altruism  and  original  sympathetic  tendency  in  human  nature/ 
but  declares  that  the  will  is  capable  of  disinterested  benevolence, 
and  this  he  seeks  to  prove  by  the  evidence  of  social  and  benevolent 
instincts  in  animals.  "For  if  we  admit  a  disinterested  benevolence 
in  inferior  species,  then  by  what  rule  of  analogy  can  we  refuse  it 
in  the  superior  ...  we  shall  find  that  the  hypothesis  which 
allows  of  a  disinterested  benevolence  distinct  from  self-love  is 
more  conformable  to  the  analogy  of  nature  than  that  which  pre- 
tends to  resolve  all  friendship  and  humanity  into  this  latter  prin- 
ciple"7 "for  the  voice  of  nature  and  experience  seems  plainly  to 
oppose  the  selfish  theory."8  I  have  pointed  out  this  apparent 


1.  See  "Enquiry,"  app.  pp.  264-265,  248-249,  sec.  9,  part  I. 

2.  See  "Treatise,"  Bk.  Ill,  part  I,  sec.  i. 

3.  Ibid,  Bk.  Ill,  part  II,  sec.  2. 

4.  See  "Enquiry,"  part  I,  sec.  9,  p.  247,  Note. 

5.  Treatise  III,  part  II,  sec.  i. 

6.  See  Enquiry,  part  I,  sec.  9,  p.  247. 

7.  Enquiry,  app.  2. 

8.  Enquiry,  part  I,  sec.  5,  p.  204.    Enquiry,  part  I,  sec.  9,  p.  249. 


60  The  Individual  and  Society 

change  of  view  in  Hume's  conception  of  ethics  because  that  it 
emphasizes  the  fact  that  in  his  latter  work,  Hume  is  evidently 
struggling  aganst  the  individualism  of  his  age  and  seems  to  have 
grasped  in  his  more  mature  work,  though  somewhat  imperfectly, 
the  continuity  of  the  race  and  the  corporate  life  of  the  community. 
The  point  upon  which  he  insists  in  his  "Enquiry"  is  the  neces- 
sarily social  nature  of  human  desires  and  propensities :  for  though 
Hume  is  sceptical  in  his  metaphysics  regarding  the  self  he  has 
no  doubt  whatever  in  his  "Enquiry"  regarding  the  social.  His 
criticism  of  contemporary  egoism  is  that  when  the  term  egoism 
is  stretched  to  include  all  human  motives  it  loses  its  meaning. 
"Whatever  contradictions  may  vulgarly  be  supposed  between  the 
selfish  and  social  sentiments  and  dispositions  they  are  really  no 
more  opposite  than  selfish  and  ambitious,  selfish  and  revengeful, 
selfish  and  vain.  It  is  requisie  that  there  be  an  original  propen- 
sity of  some  kind  in  order  to  be  a  basis  of  self-love,  by  giving  a 
relish  to  the  object  of  its  pursuit;  and  there  is  none  more  fit  for 
this  purpose  than  benevolence  or  humanity."1  The  important 
point  in  the  above  quotation  is  not  so  much  the  denial  of  egoism 
as  the  only  motive  of  the  will,  for  Cumberland,  Shaftesbury, 
Hutcheson,  and  others  had  done  that,  but  the  fact  that  Hume  here 
adopts  the  view  that  man  has  a  nature  which  may  realize  itself 
quite  as  much  in  acts  which  make  for  the  good  of  society  at 
large  as  in  those  which  are  dictated  by  egoism  alone.  Further- 
more, Hume  sees  in  the  essential  social  nature  of  man  one  of 
the  fundamental  principles  upon  which  government  is  established. 
"Force,"  he  says,  "is  on  the  side  of  the  governed"  'and  if  men 
were  not  social  by  nature,  easily  influenced,  fond  of  following  a 
leader,  acting  in  masses,  and  sharing  the  communal  opinion  and 
thought,  there  could  be  no  government;'  "it  is  this  same  social 
disposition,  that  leads  men  to  submit  to  their  rulers  and  live  in 
peace  and  harmony."2  Hume  here  and  in  his  eassy  on  "Dignity 
or  Meanness  of  Human  Nature"  repudiates  the  H^obbist  origin  of 
society  and  the  unmitigated  selfishness  of  man,3  and  bases  the 


1.  Enquiry,  part  II,  sec.  9. 

2.  See  Essay  on  the  Principles  of  Government,  vol.  I,  pp.  no-in    Green 
and  Grose  ed. 

3.  Ibid,  vol.  i,  pp.  I54~T55- 


The  Individual  and  Society  6l 

social  state  not  on  fear  as  did  Hobbes  but  on  the  social  disposi- 
tion of  human  nature. 

In  dealing  with  the  origin  of  justice  Hume  attacks  the  contract 
theory  and  shows  that  law,  property,  and  the  sacredness  of  con- 
tracts exist  first  in  society,  but  not  first  in  the  state,  and  while 
the  obligation  to  observe  contracts  is  indeed  made  stronger  by  the 
civil  law  and  civil  authority,  it  is  not  created  by  them.  Hume  says 
that  law  arises  not  from  a  formal  contract  but  from  a  tacit  agree- 
ment, a  sense  of  common  interests,  and  this  agreement  in  turn 
proceeds  from  an  original  propensity  to  enter  into  social  rela- 
tions.1 

HUME'S  OPPOSITION  TO  THE  HOBBIST  "STATUS 
NATURALIS." 

Hume  looked  upon  the  Hobbist  "Status  Naturalis"  as  a  mere 
fiction  not  unlike  the  "golden  age''  which  poets  have  invented, 
only  that  the  latter  is  represented  as  the  most  charming  and  most 
peaceful  conditon  that  the  imagination  can  depict,  while  the 
former  is  described  as  one  of  mutual  war  and  violence.  Hume 
therefore  denies  the  existence  of  a  state  of  nature  such  as  poetical 
fancy  has  pictured  and  philosophical  fiction  has  described,  but 
feels,  however,  that  if  a  state  of  nature  ever  did  exist  it  must 
have  been  more  like  the  "golden  age"  than  that  which  the 
Leviathan  sets  forth.  Concerning  the  Hobbist  "Status  Naturalis,'' 
he  says,  "whether  such  a  condition  of  human  nature  could  ever 
exist  or  if  it  did,  could  continue  so  long  as  to  merit  the  appella- 
tion of  a  state  may  justly  be  doubted."2  Like  Cumberland,  Hume 
felt  that  had  men  lived  in  a  state  of  nature  in  "mutual  war,  violence 
and  distrust"  they  never  could  have  formed  a  social  state,3  and 
the  fact  that  men  were  capable  of  doing  so  proves  that  the  un- 
social and  lawless  state  of  nature  is  a  philosophical  fiction,  and 
substantiates  the  assumption  that  man  has  always  been  a  social 
being  "born  into  a  family-society"  upon  whom  no  greater  punish- 
ment can  be  imposed  than  that  of  enforced  isolation. 


1.  See  Enquiry,  app.  Ill,  pp.  272-278. 

2.  Enquiry,  part  I,  sec.  3,  p.   185. 

3.  See  Dignity  or  Meanness  of  Human  Nature,  pp.   150-156-     Original 
Contract,  pp.  443-460. 


62  The  Individual  and  Society 

HUME'S  IDEAL  OF  SYMPATHY. 

Hume's  theory  of  sympathy  is  primarily  designed  to  explain 
how  an  indivdual,  whose  experience  is  absolutely  confined  to  his 
own  feelings,  can  yet  acquire  such  an  interest  in  the  feelings  of 
other  individuals  as  to  form  a  society  in  which  his  own  feelings 
are  subordinated  to  that  of  others.  In  dealing  with  sympathy, 
Hume  regards  only  its  objective  side :  we  feel  sympathy  with 
moral  actions,  he  says,  even  when  they  do  not  affect  us  by 
putting  ourselves  in  the  place  of  those  who  are  benefited.  But 
although  sympathy,  in  spite  of  its  emotional  basis,  is  thus  given 
a  utilitarian  tendency,  it  is  not  a  utility  that  is  synonomous  with 
self-interest,  for  Hume  has  in  mind  a  utility  that  embraces  public 
good  as  well  as  private  interest.1  It  is  the  usefulness  of  an  act 
whether  to  ourselves  or  to  others  that  we  sympathize  with,  and 
not  because  it  gives  us  pleasure;  a  benevolent  act  will  give  us 
pleasure,  but  we  do  not  perform  the  act  for  the  pleasure  it  will 
give;  the  act  is  antecedent  to  the  pleasure,  for  example,  Hume 
assumes  that  it  is  possible  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  another  man 
by  sympathy,  and  this  assumption  he  uses  to  explain  the  incon- 
sistency between  the  theory  that  the  virtue  of  an  act  is  nothing 
but  the  pleasure  it  gives  us,  and  the  admitted  fact  that  we  often 
approve  of  actions  which  are  decidedly  hurtful  to  us  and  ad- 
vantageous to  our  enemies.  We  sympathize  he  says,  with  the 
supposed  pleasures  which  a  quality  or  character  gives  the  pos- 
sessor, as  we  do  with  the  supposed  pleasure  of  the  owner  of  a 
useful  article,  and  furthermore,  that  transferred  pleasure  is  suffi- 
cient to  overcome  the  pleasure  we  feel  in  surveying  qualities  useful 
to  ourselves,  and  to  raise  in  us  a  disapproval  of  our  own  unjust 
though  profitable  actions. 

Hume  bases  our  moral  judgments  upon  the  feeling  of  sympathy, 
(which  he  calls  in  the  "Enquiry,"  benevolence)  and  he  defines 
it  as  an  interest  in  the  well-being  of  others  which  nature  has 
implanted  within  us.  In  speaking  of  this  internal  sense  or  feeling 
which  nature  has  made  universal  in  our  species,  there  is  a  lack 
of  clearness  in  his  thought,  and  one  might  at  first  imagine  this 
internal  sense  or  feeling  to  be  no  other  than  the  moral  sense  of 
Hutcheson,  but  a  more  careful  study  shows  that  such  is  not  his 


i.  Enquiry,  part  II,  sec.  5,  pp.  216-217. 


The  Individual  and  Society  63 

meaning,  (as  is  shown  in  his  first  app.  to  "Enquiry")  for  Hume 
does  not  find  it  necessary  to  assume  a  moral  sense,  since  he  regards 
sympathy  as  the  basis  of  moral  sentiments;  he  therefore  defines 
that  feeling  which  nature  has  made  universal,  as  sympathy  or 
humanity.1  Furthermore,  Hume  bases  the  virtue  of  an  act  upon 
our  natural  feelings  rather  than  upon  a  moral  motive.  As  a 
heteronomist  Hume  saw  the  fallaciousness  of  basing  morality 
upon  morality,  and  therefore,  he  declares  that  "an  action  must  be 
virtuous  before  we  have  a  regard  to  its  virtue.  ...  In  short, 
it  may  be  established  as  an  undoubted  maxim  that  no  action  can 
be  virtuous  or  morally  good  unless  there  be  in  human  nature 
some  motive  to  produce  it  distinct  from  the  sense  of  its  morality."2 
In  this  calm  statement  of  heteronomy  Hume  anticipates  Kant's 
contrary  argument  (that  an  act  is  not  virtuous  unless  it  is  done 
from  a  moral  motive)  by  nearly  a  half  a  century.  Although 
Hume  in  his  "Treatise"  seems  to  give  to  this  "natural  and  uni- 
versal feeling"  an  egoistic  origin,  nevertheless  when  he  speaks 
of  it  as  benevolence  in  his  "Enquiry,"  its  original  derivation  from 
self-interest  alone  is  discarded  by  him  or  at  least  is  kept  very  far 
in  the  background. 

Hume  finds  from  an  inductive  study  of  human  experience  con- 
clusive evidence  that  man  is  capable  of  a  disinterested  moral 
judgment.3  Berzellotti  quotes  Lackey  and  Bain,  writers,  he  says, 
whose  authority  cannot  be  doubted,  as  declaring  that  Hume  stands 
out  as  one  of  the  exponents  of  disinterested  affection,4  and 
Whewill  points  out  that  one  of  the  elements  in  Hume's  system  of 
ethics  which  gives  his  principles  of  morals  such  high  merit  is 
"his  conclusive  argument  for  human  disinterestedness."5  While 
it  is  true  that  Hume's  sympathy  differs  from  the  emotion  of 
benevolence  and  universal  love  for  humanity,  on  which  Hutcheson 
had  based  his  ethical  theory,  nevertheless,  it  has  the  same  common 
aim,  for  both  further  the  existence  of  disinterested  moral  judg- 
ments and  acts.6 


1.  "Enquiry,"  app.  I,  p.  259. 

2.  Treatise,  Bk.  Ill,  part  II,  sec.  I. 

3.  Enquiry,  app.  2. 

4.  Ethics  of  Positivism,— Barzellotti,  pp.   112-113,    (1878). 

5.  A  Dissertation  on  Ethical  Philosophy,  p.  231,  (1836). 

6.  Treatise,  Bk.  Ill,  part  I,  sec.  3.     See  also  Wundt's  Ethical  Systems, 
p.  76,  (1897). 


64  The  Individual  and  Society 

Hume  in  rejecting  the  Hobbist  origin  of  morals  and  in  re- 
pudiating the  contention  of  both  Hobbes  and  Mandeville,  that 
man  is  not  capable  of  unselfish  acts  or  disinterested  moral  judg- 
ments, declares  that  such  a  view  can  be  very  easily  disproved  by 
a  "crucial  experiment"  on  the  play  of  our  moral  sentiments; 
and  as  a  further  proof  he  points,  like  Hutcheson,  to  the  fact  that 
we  frequently  bestow  praise  on  virtuous  acts  performed  in  very 
distant  ages  and  remote  countries  and  even  a  brave  deed  per- 
formed by  an  adversary  commands  our  approbation,  though  its 
consequences  may  be  acknowledged  prejudicial  to  our  particular 
interest.1  Hume  looked  upon  the  instinctive  sympathy  with  which 
nature  has  endowed  us,  as  a  "principle  in  human  nature  beyond 
which  we  cannot  hope  to  find  any  principle  more  general." 
Sympathy  in  Hume's  system  takes  the  place  of  Hutcheson's 
"moral  sense"  and  Butler's  "conscience,"  and  is  the  one  element 
in  our  nature  by  which  we  are  led'  to  approve  or  disapprove  moral 
acts.  In  the  element  of  sympathy  Hume  finds  not  alone  the  basic 
principle  of  his  system  of  ethics  but  the  clearest  proof  of  man's 
sociability.  So  conclusive  for  him  is  the  evidence  of  our  social 
nature  that  all  our  acts  are  declared  by  him  good  or  bad  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  useful  in  promoting  the  public  good.2  But 
that  is  not  the  chief  reason  why  we  find  in  him  the  culmination  of 
the  social  in  the  i8th  century,  for  other  moralists  had  recognized 
the  social  instinct  in  man  and  by  means  of  it,  in  the  form  of 
benevolence  (Cumberland)  or  native  sociality  (Shaftesbury), 
disinterested  moral  judgments  (Hutcheson)  or  conscience  (But- 
ler"), had  endeavored  to  relate  the  individual  to  the  social,  but 
because  he  recognized  not  alone  the  social  nature  of  the  individual 
but  also  the  social  nature  of  the  race.  Hume  saw,  though  some- 
what obscurely,  that  this  universal  principle,  this  internal  sense 
was  the  one  touch  of  nature  that  gave  to  society  an  organic  rather 
than  an  atomic  life.3  Hampered  and  circumscribed  by  the  thought 
of  his  day  Hume  finds  it  difficult  to  break  away  from  the  individ- 
ualistic conceptions  of  his  age,  and  is  led  at  times  to  unduly 
emphasize  the  ability  of  the  individual,  say  of  a  genius,  to  mould 


1.  Enquiry,  part  I,  sec.  5, 

2.  Enquiry,  sec.  9. 

2.  Enquiry,  part  I,  sec.  9,  pp.  248-249. 


The  Individual  and  Society  65 

the  character  of  his  age;  but  even  here  Hume  so  far  transcends 
the  abstract  individualism  of  his  day  as  to  recognize  the  corporate 
life  of  the  community  and  the  dependence  of  the  individual, 
however  great,  upon  the  influence  of  his  social  environment.1 

To  have  seen  the  relation  which  the  present  holds  to  the  past 
and  the  utter  dependence  of  the  individual,  though  a  genius,  upon 
both  the  social  environment  and  former  institutions  for  his  fitness 
to  perform  his  work,  and  that  too  in  an  age  so  dominated  by  the 
atomic  theory  of  society,  is  a  fact  which  is  surely  worthy  of 
onr  notice;  and  all  the  more  so  when  we  remember  that  the 
results  which  the  evolutionary  study  of  literature  has  since  yielded 
and  the  historical  continuity  and  interdependence  of  one  age 
upon  another,  which  our  more  recent  historians  have  pointed  out 
with  varying  degrees  of  success,  were  all  unknown  to  Hume. 
That  he  should  have  grasped  the  historical  continuity  and  stability 
of  society  and  recognized  that  each  generation  was  heir  to  the 
institutions  and  customs  already  established  by  its  predecessors 
(as  he  undoubtedly  does  in  his  "Original  Contract"2  was  a  long 
step  toward  the  ideas  of  the  iQth  century  with  its  racial  solidarity 
and  organic  conception  of  society. 

Hume's  attitude  toward  the  historical  method  has  been  criticised 
by  some  because  of  his  failure  not  only  to  appreciate  fully  the 
social  relations  and  the  plasticity  of  the  individual,  but  because 
he  could  never  quite  free  himself  from  the  individualism  of  his 
age.  But  a  careful  study  of  his  views  regarding  society  will  show 
that,  though  he  may  have  failed  to  grasp  the  full  content  of  the 
historical  method,  he  did  not  fail  to  recognize,  at  least  to  some 
degree,  the  corporate  life  of  society,  and  to  'contribute  to  the 
historical  method  a  more  adequate  conception  of  the  social  nature 
of  the  individual  and  of  the  organic  structure  of  society,  than  was 
generally  prevalent  among  his  contemporaries.'  If  in  Cumberland 
and  especially  in  Shaftesbury  we  find  the  first  negation  of  the 
anti-social  in  the  individual,  so  in  Hume  we  have  the  first  negation 
of  the  anti-social  in  the  race.  The  positivism  of  Comte  is  not 
only  anticipated  in  the  scepticism  of  Hume  but  his  racial  soli- 


1.  See  Essay— Rise  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  vol.  I,  pp.  176-177.     Green  & 
Grose  ed. 

2.  Essay— Of  the  Original  Contract,  vol.  I,  p.  452.     Green  &  Grose  ed 


66  The  Individual  and  Society 

darity  is  foreshadowed  in  the  essays  of  the  Scotch  sceptic.  The 
organic  life  of  the  race  which  Hume  saw  "as  through  a  glass 
darkly,"  the  moralists  of  the  I9th  century  saw  "face  to  face;"  and 
it  is  their  development  of  that  truth  which  marks  the  sharp  distinc- 
tion between  the  social  concepts  of  the  i8th  and  iQth  centuries  and 
gives  to  us  an  organic  instead  of  an  individualistic  conception  of 
society. 

The  ethical  theories  of  Hume  and  Smith  taken  together  mark 
the  culmination  of  the  social  in  the  i8th  century.  Smith,  though 
indebted  to  Hutcheson  and  especially  to  Hume  for  his  idea  of 
sympathy,  which  is  the  key  of  his  system,  develops  it  independ- 
ently; his  application  and  explanation  of  the  principle  is  thor- 
oughly original,  and  he  finds  in  it,  as  we  shall  see  later  in  our 
study  of  his  system,  the  true  point  of  contact  between  the  self 
and  the  other  self.1  If  it  be  said  that  in  Hume's  scepticism  we 
have  an  anticipation  of  Comte's  positivism,  so  with  equal  right 
it  may  be  said,  that  in  Smith's  sympathy  we  have  an  anticipation 
of  Darwin's  treatment  of  conscience  and  the  social  concept. 

ADAM  SMITH. 

The  two  books  through  which  Adam  Smith  is  best  known  and 
appreciated  as  a  thinker,  are  his  "Theory  of  the  Moral  Senti- 
ment," (1759)  and  his  "Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes 
of  the  Wealth  of  Nations."  (1776)  One  would  hardly  suspect 
from  the  former  work  the  standpoint  which  he  assumes  in  the 
latter.  (The  two  books  seem  radically  opposed  to  each  other  in 
their  conception  of  society  and  the  place  which  the  ego  occupies 
in  the  social  order.  In  his  ethics,  the  individual  must  recognize 
the  supremacy  of  society,  and  flatten  the  sharpness  of  his  natural 
tone  to  meet  its  approval;2  while  in  his  economics,  society  must 
take  a  subordinate  place  and  keep  her  hands  off  the  individual 
in  his  efforts  at  self  realization.  V 'In  fact  all  intervention  of  the 
state,  whether  it  be  in  the  way  of  help  or  hindering  economic 
processes,  is,  under  normal  conditions,  an  evil."  As  a  political 
economist  Smith  makes  the  chief  motive  of  human  action  to  con- 


1.  Constructive  Ethics,— Courtney,  pp.  94-95,  (1886). 

2.  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment,  Part  I,  sec.  i. 


The  Individual  and  Society  67 

sist  in  a  prudent  calculation  guided  by  egoistic  interests ;  but  as  a 
moralist  he  bases  his  whole  theory  on  the  feelings,  and  among 
the  feelings  he  makes  altruism  supreme.  {Sympathy  is  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  his  ethics,  but  the  acquisitive  instinct  is  the 
basis  of  his  political  economy.)  An  egoistic  utility  is  therefore 
the  main  spring  of  action  in  his  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  while  in 
his  "Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment"  he  makes  a  disinterested 
impulse  (or  sense  of  propriety)  precede  all  thought  of  utility 
and  bases  moral  approval  neither  on  direct  nor  indirect  utilitarian- 
ism.1 Hoffding  fails  to  see  any  contradiction  in  the  two  works 
and  says  "the  fact  that  both  were  originally  parts  of  one  and  the 
same  course  of  lectures  does  not  harmonize  with  any  view  of 
conflict  between  them,  and  furthermore,  he  adds,  sympathy  with 
human  life  in  every  phase  forms  the  basis  of  Smith's  political 
economy;  it  covers  the  effort  of  laborers  to  secure  better  wages 
as  well  as  the  effort  of  employers  to  increase  production.  His 
ethics  is,  therefore,  in  internal  harmony  with  his  economics."2 
It  seems  to  us,  however,  on  the  contrary  that  the  emphasis  placed) 
on  the  independence  of  the  individual  and  the  subordinate  posi- 
tion which  he  gives  to  society  in  his  "Wealth  of  Nations"  is  out 
of  harmony  with  the  part  which  society  is  made  to  play  in  his 
"Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment"  and  warrants  us  in  asserting 
that  the  point  of  view  in  the  former  is  individualistic  while  that  of  » 
the  latter  is  social. 

SMITH'S  SOCIAL  THEORY  OF  THE  MORAL  SENTIMENT. 

Smith  proceeds  in  his  "Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment"  on  the 
assumption  that  the  social  and  altruistic  feelingsi  dominate  human 
action,  and  finds  in  the  simple  and  natural  feeling  of  sympathy  the 
origin  of  the  moral  sentiment.  Martineau  rejects  this  concep- 
tion of  the  moral  sentiment  and  declares  that  "it  is  no  less 
impossible  in  ethics  to  resolve  moral  sentiment  into  sympathy 
than  in  optics  to  treat  of  reflection  of  light  without  any  incidence."5 
Hlume,  by  his  emphasis  upon  this  element  of  sympathy  which  he 


1.  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment,  Part  IV,  chap.  2,  Part  VII,  chap.  I. 

2.  A  Brief  History  of  Philosophy, — Hoffding,  p.  114. 

3.  Types  of  Ethical  Theories,  vol.  II,  p.  185. 


68  The  Individual  and  Society 

found  in  human  nature  and  by  his  conception  of  a  state  of  nature 
so  antipodal  to  that  of  the  Hobbist  "Status  Naturalis,"  put  an  end 
to  the  Hobbist  theory  of  ethics.  Influenced  by  the  ethical  theories 
of  Hume  and  especially  by  his  conception  of  sympathy,  Smith 
follows  up  the  idea  of  sympathy  suggested  by  Hume  and  de- 
velops it  more  fully  than  his  predecessor:  "dispensing  with  all 
Hume's  elaborate  machinery  for  transferring  into  ourselves  the 
pleasure  of  another  person  in  things  useful  to  him"  he  develops 
the  simple  element  of  sympathy  and  makes  it  the  fundamental 
principle  of  his  whole  system.  Smith  in  his  treatment  of  the 
subject  is  more  concerned  with  the  psychology  of  sympathy  than 
he  is  with  its  metaphysics.  He  regards  sympathy  as  the  ultimate 
element  into  which  moral  sentiment  may  be  analyzed  and  holds 
that  there  is  no  ground  for  assuming  a  peculiar  "moral  sense;" 
and  finds  in  the  simple  feeling  of  sympathy  all  that  is  necessary  for 
the  basis  of  moral  judgments.  Smith  reached  this  conception 
of  moral  judgment  by  recognizing  the  full  bearing  of  a  thought 
which  Hume  had  expressed,  that  Amoral  judgment  depends  on 
participation  in  the  feelings  of  the  agent^  and  with  fine  psycholog- 
ical observation  he  followed  out  this  sympathy  of  men  from  its 
first  to  its  last  manifestations.  He  begins  with  the  simple  feeling 
of  sympathy  and  refers  to  our  instinctive  imitation  of  the  ges- 
tures and  behavior  of  others  as  a  proof  of  this  natural  element 
with  which  human  nature  is  endowed.  When  we  go  through  all 
the  motions  of  a  person  walking  on  a  tight  rope,  or  when  we 
feel  as  we  look  on  a  beggar  with  sores,  an  itching  sensation  at 
the  corresponding  parts  in  our  own  body,  or  feel  a  tightening  of 
our  muscles  when  we  see  a  blow  aimed  at  another,  we  instinctively 
and  naturally  put  ourselves  into  the  other  person's  place.1  Here 
at  this  first  stage  of  sympathy  which  is  purely  psychological  and 
natural,  the  spectator  sympathizes  with  the  feelings  of  the  agent, 
with  the  gratitude  or  anger  of  the  person  affected  by  the  action, 
and  the  person  observed  sympathizes  in  turn  also  with  the  imita- 
tive and  judging  feelings  of  the  spectator.  There  seems  at  first 
in  Smith's  system  of  ethics  no  limit  to  our  natural  and  spon- 
taneous feelings;  he  finds  in  the  simple  element  of  sympathy  all 


i.  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment,  Part  I,  sec.  I. 


The  Individual  and  Society  69 

the  facts  necessary  for  the  origin  of  moral  approval  ;(^ut  later  he 
is  confronted  with  the  fact  that  in  human  experience  the  spectator 
cannot  always  respond  to  the  excessive  emotions  of  others  who 
long  for  sympathy  and  in  order  to  secure  it  they  find  it  necessary 
to  flatten  the  sharpness  of  their  natural  tone  so  as  to  reduce  it 
to  harmony  and  concord  with  the  emotions  of  those  who  are 
about  them,1  therefore  Smith  introduces  a  sense  of  propriety 
by  which  he  would  limit  that  natural  and  simple  element  of 
sympathy  which  at  the  beginning  seemed  all  that  was  necessary 
for  his  theory  of  the  moral  sensej  It  seems  to  us  that  in  limiting 
our  simple  and  natural  feelings  of  sympathy,  Smith  has  departed 
from  his  former  assumption  that  the  simple  element  of  sympathy 
was  all  that  was  necessary  for  his  ethical  system.  It  is  true  that 
feeling  is  still,  with  Smith,  the  basis  and  source  of  our  moral 
sentiments  and  approbation,  but  it  is  no  longer  the  simple  ele- 
ment of  sympathy  with  which  he  began,  and  which  in  its  very 
nature  was  spontaneous  and  unlimited,  but  a  compound  feeling 
which  deepnds  on  other  elements  for  its  stimulation.  This, 
however,  does  not  affect  the  fundamental  principle  of  his  ethics 
for  sympathy  is  still  with  him  the  foundation  of  his  social  theory 
of  the  moral  sentiment — the  source  and  origin  of  our  moral  judg- 
ments. 

THE  ETHICS  OF  SYMPATHY. 

Smith,  as  we  have  seen,  was  indebted  to  Hume  for  the  idea  of 
sympathy  which  he  makes  the  source  of  our  moral  sentiment,  but 
he  differs  from  Hume  and  goes  beyond  him  in  his  treatment  of 
the  feelings.  Sympathy,  for  Smith,  has  a  broader  and  deeper 
meaning  than  it  had  for  his  predecessor ;  he  is  not  satisfied  with 
regarding  simply  the  objective  side  of  sympathy  as  was  Hume, 
but  goes  a  step  further  and  completes  the  conception  by  adding  to 
it  the  subjective  aspect  as  well.  Hume  declared  that  we  sympa- 
thize with  moral  actions  which  do  not  affect  ourselves,  by  putting 
ourselves  in  the  place  of  those  with  whom  we  sympathize,  but 
Smith  says  we  feel  sympathy  with  moral  actions  not  only  because 


I.  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiment,  Part  I,  sec.  I. 


7°  The  Individual  and  Society 

we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  person  affected,  but  because 
we  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  agent.  Sympathy,  being  for  Smith 
the  ultimate  element  into  which  moral  sentiments  may  be  analyzed, 
takes  largely  the  place  in  his  system  that  the  "moral  sense"  held 
in  the  ethics  of  Hutcheson.  It  is  for  him  the  basis  of  our  benevo- 
lent and  social  nature  and  the  ground  of  our  moral  judgment; 
it  is  the  means,  he  says,  by  which  we  enter  into  another's  mind 
and  estimate  its  contents  and  set  up  a  moral  standard  of  judg- 
ment.1 So  fundamental  is  sympathy  to  Smith  that  he  cannot  con- 
ceive a  person  so  low  and  hardened  as  not  to  have  it.  'The 
greatest  ruffian,  the  most  hardened  violator  of  the  laws  of  society 
is  not  altogether  without  it."2  This  conception  of  sympathy  which 
Smith  had,  enables  him  to  consider  the  ethical  possibilities  in  the 
human  relation  between  man  and  society,  and  leads  him  to  see 
that  man  is  capable  of  a  disinterested  moral  judgment.  He  can 
stand  aside  as  a  disinterested  spectator  and  by  means  of  sympathy, 
which  he  says  is  a  natural  endowment  in  all  men,  he  instinctively 
changes  places  with  the  sufferer.3 

Smith,  in  describing  the  actions  best  calculated  to  arouse  sympa- 
thy within  us,  introduces  the  higher  notion  of  merit.  Propriety, 
he  says,  arises  from  a  direct  sympathy  with  the  feelings  and 
motives  of  the  person  who  acts :  merit  is  occasioned  by  an  in- 
direct sympathy  with  the  gratitude  and  resentment  of  the  person 
who  is  acted  upon.4  The  sense  of  duty  arises  from  putting  our- 
selves in  the  place  of  others  and  adopting  their  sentiments  re- 
specting our  own  conduct ;  moral  judgments  being  impartial,  we 
apply  to  ourselves  the  standard  that  we  apply  to  others  and  con- 
demn in  ourselves  that  which  in  our  cool  moments  we  would 
condemn  in  another  as  unjust :  duty,  therefore,  stands  above  the 
me  and  the  myself  and  makes  us  judge  impartially  as  per  dia- 

I 

grain,5  generosity^^--^^"      "^~~—- ^^^^gratitude 
me  myself 

anger  resentment 


1.  Ibid,  part  I,  chap.  2. 

2.  Ibid,  part  I,  chap.  i. 

3.  Ibid,  part  I,  chap.  I. 

4.  Ibid,  part  II,  sec.  i,  chap. 

5.  Ibid,  part  III,  chap.  i. 


The  Individual  and  Society  71 

We  are  thus  capable  not  only  of  entering  into  another's  feelings 
but  we  can  stand  apart  and  in  the  attitude  of  a  spectator  view  our 
own  acts  with  approval  or  disapproval :  here  Smith  divides  the 
ego  into  two  persons,  one  who  judges  and  the  other  who  is  judged ; 
and  it  is  this  impartial  spectator  within  the  breast  which  at  last 
finds  itself  in>  the  place  of  conscience  deciding  for  or  against,  re- 
gardless of  the  agent's  personal  feelings.  This  conscience  of 
sympathy,  moreover,  not  only  holds  the  position  of  authority  but 
it  lays  down  rules  which  are  the  commands  and  laws  of  the 
Deity,1  such  as  conception  of  conscience  and  its  relation  to  God 
saved  Smith  from  the  utilitarian  tendency  of  Hume. 

The  final  judgment  of  the  merit  of  an  act  rests,  for  Hume,  on 
its  external  object;  for  Smith,  it  rests  upon  the  disposition.  We 
cannot,  he  says,  be  moved  to  sympathy  with  another's  act  unless 
we  are  convinced  that  it  springs  from  a  moral  disposition.  Motive 
and  not  utility  is  the  determining  principle  of  an  act  for  Smith,2 
and  in  that  principle  he  finds,  as  did  Hutcheson,  a  disinterested 
motive  in  the  human  will,  as  well  as  the  capability  of  disinterested 
moral  judgments  in  the  intellect. 

In  his  conception  of  sympathy,  Smith  corrects  the  egoistic 
psychology  of  Hobbes,  by  showing  that  he  was  in  error  in  attribut- 
ing to  sympathy  a  selfish  content;  "when  I  enter  into  sympathy' 
with  another  I  not  only  change  circumstances,  he  says,  "with  that 
person  but  I  change  persons  and  character.  My  grief,  therefore, 
is  entirely  on  his  account  and  not  in  the  least  upon  by  own. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  in  the  least  selfish.  How  can  that  be  regarded 
as  selfish  passion  which  does  not  arise  even  from  the  imagination 
of  anything  that  has  befallen  or  that  relates  to  myself  in  my 
own  proper  person  and  character,  but  which  is  entirely  occupied * 
about  what  relates  to  you."3 

SMITH'S  ANTICIPATION  OF  DARWIN. 

In  his  treatment  of  conscience  and  remorse,  Smith  anticipates 
the  social  conscience  of  Darwin.  Conscience,  for  Smith  as  for 


1.  Ibid,  part  III,  chap.  I,  chap.  5. 

2.  Ibid,  part  IV,  chap.  2,  p.  303. 

3.  Ibid,  part  VII,  sec.  3,  chap.  i. 


/2  The  Individual  and  Society 

Darwin,  is  a  sense  of  man's  agreement  or  disagreement  with 
humanity;  any  act  of  impropriety  on  the  part  of  the  agent  will 
be  frowned  upon  by  society  and  produce  a  sense  of  disapproval 
and  shame  in  the  agent.  He  who  does  a  wrong  act,  says  Smith, 
to  another  to  gratify  his  own  passions,  must  not  expect  that  the 
spectators,  who  have  none  of  his  undue  partiality  to  his  own 
interest,  will  enter  into  his  feelings,  In  such  a  case  he  knows  that 
they  will  pity  the  person  wronged  and  be  full  of  indignation 
against  him.  When  he  is  cooled  he  adopts  the  sentiment  of  others 
on  his  own  crime,  feels  ashamed  at  the  impropriety  of  his  former 
passion,  pity  for  those  who  have  suffered  by  him  and  a  dread  of 
punishment  from  general  and  just  resentment  produces  in  him  a 
feeling  of  remorse.1  Memory  and  shame  are  for  Smith  the  con- 
stituent part  of  conscience  and  remorse.  The  memory  that  we 
have  committed  an  act  of  impropriety  will  produce  a  sense  of 
shame  within  us,  as  the  memory  of  an  unjust  act,  which  spectators 
would  condemn,  produces  in  us  a  sense  of  remorse.  Darwin  fol- 
lows Smith  in  his  explanation  of  the  social  conscience, — the  feel- 
ing of  self-reproach  or  remorse.  Given  an  animal  with  several 
instincts,  some  transient  and  intermittent,  others  persistent,  so 
related  as  to  be  liable  to  conflict,  and  with  also  intelligence  enough 
to  secure  memory  of  the  past  and  reflection  upon  its  images,  and 
the  feeling  of  remorse,  Darwin  assures  us,  is  certain  to  follow. 
For  the  most  persistent  of  instincts  in  a  creature  thus  far  de- 
veloped will  be  the  social  feeling  of  attachment  to  the  community 
in  which  he  lives ;  but  stronger  than  this  will  often  be  by  fits  and 
starts  some  paroxysm  of  passing  want  or  passion,  as  of  hunger  or 
of  rage,  so  that  his  will  is  swept  away  by  the  more  vehement 
assault.  Afterwards,  when  these  desires  are  satisfied  and  in  their 
absence  the  durable  affection  returns  and  makes  him  conscious 
of  the  hurt  it  has  sustained,  he  cannot  but  experience  in  this 
changed  mood  regret  for  his  short-sighted  conduct :  his  temporary 
satisfaction  has  entailed  on  him  a  permanent  pain/,  and  the  memory 
of  his  impropriety  has  made  him  ashamed  of  his  act,  so  that  he 
resolves  that  in  the  future  he  will  control  his  passion.  Such  is 
Darwin's  account  of  conscience,  or  more  properly  in  the  Darwin- 
ian sense,  what  we  might  call  remorse.  Memory  and  shame  are 


i.  See  Ethical  Philosophy,— Mackintosh,  p.  165. 


The  Individual  and  Society  73 

with  Darwin  as  with  Smith,  the  principal  constituents  of  con- 
science, and  these  are  made  possible  for  the  former  as  for  the 
latter,  by  putting  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  spectators  and 
judging  our  conduct  by  their  standard.  This  anticipation  of 
Darwin  by  Smith  exactly  a  century  before  the  "Origin  of 
Species,"  must  be  regarded  as  extraordinary,  especially  when  it  is 
remembered  that  his  leading  principle  was  the  simple  feeling  of 
sympathy. 

II.    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  SOCIAL  ETHICS. 
i.    THE  RISE  OF  THE  SOCIAL. 

We  have  endeavored  to  trace  through  the  enlightenment  the 
attempt  of  the  British  moralists  to  refute  the  exclusive  egoism  of 
Hiobbes,  by  proving  that  man  was  a  social  creature  whose  benevo- 
lent instincts  led  him  to  form  a  social  state.  This  attempt  to 
prove,  what  ought  to  have  been  self-evident,  was  due — as  the 
subsequent  part  of  this  thesis  will  show — to  a  wrong  conception 

t£  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  his  social  environment,  a  con-J 
>tion  which  regarded  society  as  an  aggregate  of  individuals  I  "T 
chanically  cohering  like  atoms  or  molecules  in  inorganic  matter.  * 
e  weakness  of  this  view  became  obvious,  as  Muirhead  points 
out,  when  the  question  was  asked,  how  the  atoms,  which  accord-  -? 
ing  to  such  a  theory  constituted  society,  came  together.    To  meet 
this  question  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  century,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  recourse  not  only  to  the  mythical  contract  theory,  but  to  the    ' 
social  and  benevolent  instincts  which  they  found  in  man,  and 
through  which  they  endeavored  to  explain  the  origin  of  society. 
It  is  true  that  these  moralists  had,  as  we  have  pointed  out,  momen- 
tary glimpses  of  a  possible  organic  society,  but  not  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  I9th  century  moralists  viewed  man's  organic  rela- 
tions to  the  social  order,   for  they  never  could  rise  above  the 
thought  of  their  day  which  found  reality  alone  in  the  individual 
and   saw   in   society   an   aggregate   of   individuals   cohering  to- 
gether through  fear  as  in  the  case  of  Hobbes,  and  for  social  and 
benevolent  purposes,  as  in  the  case  of  those  who  opposed  his 
absolute  egoism;  for  both  Hobbes  and  his  opponents,  the  indi- 
vidual was  the  starting  point  not  only  of  a  social  state,  but  of 
reality  itself,  and  while  they  differed  as  to  the  nature  of  the  egos 
composing  society  and  the  instincts  which  led  them  to  form  it, 


74  The  Individual  and  Society 

they  agreed  as  to  the  nature  of  society  itself.  It  was  this  indi- 
vidualistic conception  of  society  as  an  aggregate  of  homogeneous 
units  that  prevented  them  from  recognizing  the  fact  that  man 
was  already  a  part  of  a  social  organism  and  required  no  effort 
on  their  part  to  relate  him  to  a  social  order,  from  which  he  had 
never  been  separated  and  to  which  he  was  related  not  as  a  soldier 
to  an  army  but  as  a  member  to  an  organism.  It  is  this  con- 
ception of  society  as  an  organism  that  marks  the  sharp  distinction 
between  the  ethical  theories  of  the  i8th  century  and  those  of  the 
1 9th.  The  moralists  of  the  iQth  century  turn  away  from  the 
individualistic  conceptions  which  prevailed  all  through  the  en- 
lightenment, and  by  means  of  the  historical  method,  as  in  France 
and  Germany,  and  evolution,  as  in  the  English  school,  they  prove 
that  the  individual  never  stood  alone,  that  he  owes  his  life  and 
development  to  others,  that  he  is  a  member  of  society  by  virtue 
of  his  own  inherent  nature  and  the  fact  that  he  is  a  man.1  This 
view  of  humanity  was  a  reaction  from  the  individualism  of  the 
1 8th  century,  which  came  to  an  end  in  Rousseau,  whose  indi- 
vidualistic view  of  life  was  the  last  quintessence  of  a  philosophy 
which  found  reality  alone  in  the  individual  and  terminated  in 
the  French  Revolution. 

COMTE'S  POSITIVISM  AND  SOCIALISM. 

It  is  to  Comte,  more  than  to  any  other  thinker  of  his  age,  that 
we  are  indebted  for  the  emphasis  which  the  I9th  century  placed 
upon  the  social,  in  opposition  to  that  placed  by  the  i8th  century 
upon  the  individualistic  nature  of  society,  and  this  emphasis  is 
due,  in  part  at  least,  to  his  theory  of  historical  progress,  which 
recognizing  the  continuity  and  solidarity  of  society,  links  the 
individual  to  the  past,  to  which  he  owes  his  existence  and  develop- 
ment. Caird  shows  how  fundamental  to  Comte's  whole  system 
is  man's  historical  relation  to  his  own  and  preceding  ages.  The 
life  of  the  individual  in  any  age,  he  says,  is  what  it  is  by  reason 
of  the  whole  progressive  movement  of  humanity.2  It  is  true  that 


1.  See  Comte,  Mill  and  Spencer,— Watson,  (1895),  pp.  148-149. 

2.  The  Social  Philosophy  of  Comte,— Caird,  (1898),  2nd  ed.  p.  25.     See 
also  Review  of  Evolutional  Ethics, — Williams,  (1893),  p.  122.    Value  and 
Dignity  of  Human   Life, — Shaw,   p.   376.     See  Article   in  the  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  Jan.,  1912,  by  Cooly,  which  shows  the  influence  of 
this  historical  continuity  on  pecuniary  and  social  values. 


The  Individual  and  Society  75 

we  find  in  Hegel  the  recognition  of  the  part  which  the  social 
played  in  the  moulding  of  the  individual  and  his  indebtedness  to 
past  generations  for  the  development  of  the  present,  nevertheless 
it  is  to  Comte,  as  Croom  Robertson  points  out,  that  we  are  in- 
debted for  the  first  clear  comprehensive  view  of  the  solidarity  of 
society  and  man's  indebtedness  to  the  past.1  Martineau  declares 
that  the  distinctive  feature  of  Comte's  moral  system  is  his  theory 
of  society  which  regards  it  as  a  unit  and  not  a  theory  of  personal 
conduct,  such  as  the  moralists  of  the  i8th  century  conceived  it  to 
be  and  according  to  which  each  individual  is  a  separate  factor.2 
Such  a  recognition  of  society  as  an  organism — a  unit,  and  the 
individual  of  the  enlightenment  as  a  mere  abstraction,  together 
with  the  consciousness  that  man  is  indebted  to  his  contemporaries 
and  to  past  generations  not  only  for  his  development  and  prog- 
ress, but  for  his  very  existence,  gives  Comte  an  unique  place 
among  the  thinkers  of  the  i8th  century,  who  turned  away  from 
the  individualism  of  the  enlightenment  and  maintained  the  social 
origin  and  continuity  of  humanity. '  The  problem  of  how  to  relate 
the  individual  to  society  which  confronted  the  moralist  of  the 
1 8th  century  was  no  problem  to  the  thinkers  of  the  iQth  century. 
They  did  not  look  upon  society  as  an  aggregate  of  individual 
atoms  like  stones  in  a  building,  such  as  the  moralist  of  the  i8th 
century  had  conceived  it  to  be,  but  as  an  organism  whose  mem- 
bers were  related  to  each  other  as  the  organs  of  the  body  are 
related  to  it.  The  individual,  for  them,  was  part  of  a  social  order 
from  which  he  had  never  been  separated,  and  apart  from  which 
he  could  not  have  existed.  They  were  conscious  of  the  futility 
of  the  enlightenment  in  their  attempt  to  relate  the  ego  to  the 
alter,  and  build  up  a  society  of  individual  atoms  in  a  world  so 
overwhelmingly  social,  therefore  to  them  the  problem  of  how 
to  relate  man  to  society  had  ceased  to  be  a  problem,  and  the 
greater  problem  of  how  to  keep  the  individual  from  losing  his 
individuality  in  a  socialized  world  order  by  which  he  was  so 
dominated  and  controlled,  became  the  problem  of  the  iQth  cen- 


1.  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.    Croom  Robertson,  pp.  149-150.    Sec 
also  Short  History  of  Ethics.    Rogers,  p.  258. 

2.  Comte's  System  of  Philosophy,  vol.  II,  p.  64.     Translated  by  Harriet 
Martineau,  3rd  ed.,   (1853). 


76  The  Individual  and  Society 

tury.s  Comte  was  not  indifferent  to  this  problem,  and  in  his 
earlier  philosophical  inquiries,  he  endeavors  to  find  a  place,  though 
a  subordinate  one,  for  the  individual  in  society,  where  he  may 
retain  his  individuality  and  work  out  his  own  salvation,  not  apart 
but  in  conjunction  with  his  social  environment.  This  attempt, 
however,  he  abandons  in  his  later  work  (Sociology)  and  declares 
that  in  a  world  so  overwhelmingly  social,  there  is  no  place  for 
self-realization,  and  he  therefore  in  opposition  to  his  earlier 
method,  adopts,  as  Eucken  points  out,  the  idealistic  way  of  view- 
ing and  valuing  things,  and  seeks  through  a  defied  humanity  a 
spiritual  freedom  for  the  individual. 

A  careful  examination  of  Comte's  system  shows  that  he  was 
dominated  by  two  main  ideas,  which  accounts  for  much  of  the 
inconsistency  found  in  his  philosophy,  and  explains  why  in  his 
early  works  he  is  anxious  to  preserve  the  individual  in  a  pre- 
dominantly social  order,  and  later  seeks  his  ideal  in  the  complete 
submission  of  the  individual,  whose  absorption,  through  love,  in 
the  grand  etre  secures  for  him  a  kind  of  spiritual  freedom.  The 
first  of  these  ideas  he  calls  the  law  of  the  three  stages ;  here  he 
declares  that  theology  and  metaphysics  have  no  longer  any  value 
for  man ;  he  recognizes  that  in  the  earlier  development  of  the  race 
they  were  necessary  as  a  prelude  to  all  science,  and  that  the 
former  was  well  .suited  to  excite  the  nascent  intelligence  and 
satisfy  the  primary  affection  of  man,  but  now  neither  of  them  are 
of  value  to  man,  and  therefore  he  eliminates  them  from  his  phil- 
osophy and  introduces  positivism,  which  he  claims  is  the  true 
criterion  of  knowledge.  Such  a  view  of  theology  and  metaphysics 
(both  of  which,  he  says,  fosters  individualism)  is  open  to  criti- 
cism, for  it  not  only  involves  a  false  conception  of  their  nature, 
but  necessitates  an  entire  misrepresentation  of  their  historical 
development.  The  second  thought  which  dominated  his  mind  was 
the  subordination  of  science  to  man's  social  well-being,  thus 
sociology  becomes  the  crown  of  his  system.  We  shall  be  better 
able  to  appreciate  the  part  these  two  ideas  played  in  his  work 
and  their  conflicting  influence  in  his  system  of  philosophy,  if  we 
consider  the  process  in  his  mental  development,  by  which  he 
reaches  them. 


The  Individual  and  Society  77 

The  starting  point  of  his  intellectual  development  was  his  pro- 
found conviction  that  the  pure  individualism  preached  by  Rous- 
seau, and  illustrated  in  the  blood  of  the  French  Revolution,  was 
false  and  untrue  to  the  best  interests  of  humanity.  His  youthful 
connection  with  the  movement  led  by  St.  Simon  which  sought 
to  reconstruct  society  by  combining  men  together  for  the  general 
good  of  all  and  especially  the  poor  and  weak  members  of  society, 
reveals  the  fact  that  he  shared  in  the  reaction  of  the  individualistic 
philosophy  of  the  i8th  century.  He  turns  away  from  the  doctrine 
of  "Laissez  faire"  which  was  expected  to  introduce  an  economic 
millenium,  for  he  saw  that  unless  it  was  modified  by  a  higher 
principle  there  was  grave  danger  of  its  ending  in  a  dissolution  of 
society  altogether.  Comte  soon  discovered  that  the  system  of  St. 
Simon  was  inadequate  to  meet  the  profound  needs  of  human 
society ;  that  the  simple  repression  of  rebellion,  the  mere  closing 
up  of  the  ranks  of  society  under  a  social  despotism,  that  would 
sacrifice  his  intellectual  development  in  order  to  make  him  com- 
fortable, was  an  utterly  inadequate  solution  of  the  problem.  Comte 
is  here  at  this  early  stage  of  his  development  seeking  a  place 
for  the  individual  in  society  where  he  may  assert  his  own  indi- 
viduality without  detaching  himself  from  his  social  order,  which 
attempt,  however,  he  gives  up  in  his  later  development,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  his  desire  for  spiritual  freedom  through  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  individual  in  the  grand  etre.  Comte's  revolt  against 
St.  Simonism  helps  us,  as  Caird  says,  to  understand  this  double 
movement  of  thought  out  of  which  his  philosophy  sprang.1  His 
connection  with  St.  Simon  had  taught  him  the  essential  weakness 
of  pure  individualism  and  the  need  of  seeking  a  solution  of  the 
social  problem,  not  by  combining  men  together,  as  St.  Simon  had 
attempted,  but  in  the  idea  of  society  as  an  organism :  and  it  was 
this  idea  which  in  its  fuller  development  changed  his  conception 
of  the  social  and  the  individual's  relation  to  his  environment, 
and  led  him,  as  Eucken  points  out,  to  embrace  an  idealism  that 
found  in  the  complete  submission  of  the  individual  to  the  social, 
the  goal  of  all  science. 


i.  The  Social  Philosophy  of  Comte,— Caird,  2nd  ed.,  (1893),  pp.  3-5. 


78  The  Individual  and  Society 

COMTE'S  CRITICISM  OF  THE  ENLIGHTENMENT. 

Comte's  adoption  of  the  historical  method  as  the  scientific  basis 
of  positive  philosophy,  brings  him  into  sharp  conflict  with  the 
individualism  of  the  i8th  century  whose  ignorance  of  the  historical 
continuity  of  society  led  the  thinkers  of  that  age  to  adopt  an  indi- 
vidualistic view  of  society.1  He  reminds  them  that  the  very 
language  which  they  use  to  express  their  individualism  is  itself 
a  refutation  of  their  doctrine,  for  it  is  the  product  of  long  genera- 
tions of  men  co-operating  together.2  Confident  as  he  is  that 
society  whether  in  the  form  of  the  family,  the  nation  or  humanity 
is  not  merely  a  collection  of  similar  individuals,  but  a  unity  of 
organically  related  members,  and  that  its  development  is  not  a 
succession  of  events  but  the  evolution  of  one  life  which  remains 
identical  with  itself  through  all  its  changes ;  he  therefore  main- 
tains that  the  position  of  the  thinkers  of  the  i8th  century  who 
try  to  build  up  an  individualisic  society  is  untenable:  further- 
more, he  asserts  in  opposition  to  their  atomic  theory  of  society, 
that  a  society  can  no  more  be  decomposed  into  individuals  than 
a  geometric  surface  can  be  dissolved  into  lines  or  a  line  into  points, 
and  he  affirms  that  the  simplest  association — that  is  the  family — 
sometimes  reduced  to  its  original  couple,  is  the  direct  constit- 
uent of  society  and  constitutes  its  true  unit.3  He  points  to  the 
tendency  of  modern  biology  as  a  further  proof  that  society  is 
composed  of  families  and  not  of  individuals,  and  declines,  with 
characteristic  emphasis,  to  derive  sociability  from  the  individ- 
ualism of  the  enlightenment.4  Furthermore,  he  proves  by  the 
preponderance  of  the  social  over  the  individualistic,  or  personal 
feelings  as  he  calls  them,  that  the  thinkers  of  the  iSth  century 
were  not  only  in  error  in  their  conception  of  society  as  the  sum 
of  individual  atoms,  but  also  regarding  the  origin  of  man's  social 
tendencies,  and  quotes  Gall's  cerebral  theory  as  destroying  for- 
ever the  metaphysical  fancies  of  the  enlightenment  concerning  the 


1.  H.  Martineau's  Translation  of  Comte,  vol.  II,  p.  115. 

2.  Comte's    System   of   Philosophy,    Harrison's   trans.,    (1875),    vol.    II, 
pp.  184-185. 

3.  See  Harrison's  Translation,  vol.  II,  (1875),  PP-  152-153-     Martineau's 
Translation,  vol.  II,  p.   116. 

4.  See  Windelband's  History  of  Philosophy,  pp.  501-502. 


The  Individual  and  Society  79 

origin  of  man's  social  instincts,  which  are  now  proved,  he  says, 
to  be  inherent  in  his  nature  and  not  the  result  of  utilitarian  condi- 
tions. He  even  finds  that  the  social  impulses  in  man  have  a 
separate  "organ"  in  a  separate  place  in  the  brain,  and  are  as  in- 
independent  of  intelligence  as  they  are  of  the  egoistic  instincts 
and  in  no  way  the  result  of  utility.  He  is  surprised  that  the 
thinkers  of  the  i8th  century  should  have  failed  to  see  how 
impossible  it  was  to  base  society  on  utility,  since  utility  did  not 
and  could  not  manifest  itself  until  after  the  development,  at  least 
up  to  a  certain  point,  of  the  very  society  that  it  was  supposed  to 
create ;  therefore,  he  maintains  that  society  is  not  the  product  of 
utility  but  is  the  result  of  the  "social  spontaneity"  of  human 
nature.1  He  refers  to  the  great  principle  of  love,  on  which  the 
whole  positive  doctrine  is  based,  as  a  still  further  proof  that 
the  views  of  the  preceding  century  regarding  the  composition  and 
purpose  of  society  are  untrue  to  the  facts  of  human  history  and 
experience,  and  he  claims  that  if  man  were  utterly  selfish  no 
empirical  process  could  ever  have  developed  social  sympathies 
within  him,  any  more  than  it  could  produce  reason  in  a  being  who 
was  devoid  of  even  the  germ  of  intelligence.  So  conscious  is 
Comte  of  the  dominance  of  the  social,  and  the  utter  futility  of 
the  enlightenment  to  isolate  the  individual  from  the  race,  that 
he  declares  that  not  even  in  thought,  any  more  than  in  reality, 
can  we  separate  the  individual  from  society  without  at  the  same 
time  taking  from  him  all  that  characterizes  him  as  an  individual; 
nor  can  we  regard  individuals  as  so  many  distinct  beings,  without 
doing  violence  to  a  self-evident  truth,  that  they  are  organs  of 
the  one  grand  etre  dominated  and  controlled  by  the  social  life 
of  humanity. 

It  is  very  evident  from  his  criticism  of  the  i8th  century  that 
Comte's  conception  of  society  is  very  different  from  that  of  the 
enlightenment.  To  the  thinkers  of  that  age  the  individual  stands 
alone;  society,  for  them,  is  nothing  more  than  an  aggregate  of 
individuals  drawn  together  for  mutual  safety,  and  might  again 
be  decomposed  into  separate  atoms.  Comte's  conception  of  society 
as  an  organism,  involves  a  very  different  conclusion  from  that 


i.  Martineau's  Translation,  pp.  105-106. 


8o  The  Individual  and  Society 

reached  by  them,  therefore  his  view  of  society  with  that  of  the 
igth  century  stands  out  in  sharp  contrast  from  that  of  the  en- 
lightenment. Society,  for  Comte,  is  a  unit  of  organically  related 
members,  from  which  the  individual  member  has  never  been 
isolated  and  never  can,  except,  as  he  ironically  says,  in  the  too 
abstract  mind  of  the  metaphysicians  of  the  preceding  century. 
Indeed,  so  predominantly  social  is  the  world  that  Comte  finds  the 
ego  the  mere  slave  of  his  social  environment,  whose  only  hope 
of  freedom  is  a  spiritual  one,  which,  for  Comte,  is  made  possible 
through  a  deified  humanity.  Unlike  the  moralists  of  the  enlighten- 
ment, who  endeavor  to  prove  that  man  is  a  social  creature  whose 
social  instincts  disposed  him  to  seek  the  society  of  his  kind,  the 
thinkers  of  the  iQth  century  see  no  necessity  for  such  an  effort, 
for  they  find  themselves  dominated  and  controlled  by  a  social  or- 
der that  has  not  only  reduced  the  ego  to  the  position  of  a  mere 
slave,  but  threatens  to  deprive  it  of  its  individuality  altogether. 
Comte,  as  we  have  seen,  seeks  to  avert  this  danger  by  giving  to  the 
ego  a  spiritual  freedom,  while  Spencer  and  Stephen  endeavor  to 
find  a  place  for  it  in  the  body  politic,  where  it  may  maintain  its 
individuality  though  dominated  by  its  social  environment. 

DARWIN  AND  EVOLUTIONARY  ETHICS. 

Comte's  emphasis  upon  the  historical  continuity  of  the  race 
and  his  effort  to  free  himself  from  the  individualism  of  the  en- 
lightenment, through  his  conception  of  the  corporate  life  of  society 
introduced  a  view  of  humanity  antipodal  to  that  of  the  atomic 
theory  of  the  i8th  century.  In  the  evolutionary  ethics  of  Darwin, 
Spencer  and  Stephen,  this  view  is  still  further  emphasized,  and 
the  distinction  between  the  two  centuries  is  even  more  sharply 
drawn.  They  find  no  place  in  the  history  of  the  race  for  an 
isolated  ego,  such  as  the  older  utilitarian  had  in  mind,  for  nature 
herself  is  social,  and  her  aim  is  always  the  preservation  of  the 
species  regardless  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual.  The  evolu- 
tionist has  shown  us  that  the  self,  whose  satisfaction  in  one  form 
or  another  these  moralists  aimed  at,  was  nothing  but  a  mere 
abstraction ;  and  any  theory  which  defines  the  self  in  terms  of  its 


The  Individual  and  Society  81 

individual  nature  as  only  accidently  related  to  society,  they  de- 
clared to  be  untenable.1  One  of  the  leading  exponents  of  evolu- 
tionary ethics  is  very  pronounced  in  his  rejection  of  the  atomic 
theory  of  the  i8th  century  and  declares  in  his  "Science  of 
Ethics"  "that  man  is  not  man  except  as  a  member  of  society  of 
some  kind  or  another,"  and  he  points  out  that  this  society  is  not 
merely  an  environment  in  which  man  lives  'but  is  an  environment 
that  makes  him  what  he  is.'  Humanity  as  seen  by  the  evolu- 
tionist is  so  welded  together  into  one  organic  whole,  that  for  him 
a  society  of  individuals  such  as  the  i8th  century  had  in  mind 
was  impossible.  'All  that  a  man  has,  says  Lesle^  Stephen^,  in  the 
way  of  bodily  or  mental  faculties  or  even  individuality  he  has  by 
reason  of  the  relation  in  which  he  stands  to  society.'2  Viewing 
society  as  an  organism,  the  evolutionist  agreed  with  Comte  and 
the  historical  school  of  Germany,  in  affirming  that  the  past 
history  of  society  affects  man  by  heredity,  and  the  present  condi- 
tion of  society  affects  him  as  environment,  and  that  therefore 
the  individual  could  not  be  detached  from  the  past  or  be  unaffected 
by  the  present.  All  life  for  the  evolutionist  is  related  and  the 
historical  continuity  of  the  race  an  undisputed  fact,  consequently 
for  him  an  isolated  ego  freed  from  the  influence  of  his  social 
environment  never  could  have  existed.  This  is  the  view  taken 
by  Darwin,  who  though  not  the  first  to  advance  the  theory  of 
evolution,  was  the  first  to  collect  the  facts  necessary  to  give  it 
support,3  and  to  furnish  the  thinkers  of  his  day  with  a  key  that 
enabled  them  more  clearly  to  understand  the  evolutional  hypo- 
thesis, and  the  organic  nature  of  humanity.  The  new  science  had 
shown  Darwin,  as  it  had  Spencer,  the  utter  folly  of  the  i8th 
century  in  seeking  reality  in  the  individual  alone,  he  therefore  in 
his  biological  ethics,  turns  away  from  the  atomic  theory  of  the 
older  utilitarian  moralists  and  begins  with  the  social,  where  they 
began  with  the  individual.  Darwin,  however,  is  open  to  criticism 
in  his  attitude  toward  the  egoistic  and  altruistic  instincts,  for 
here  he  presents  an  inconsistent  view  of  human  life,  since  in  his 


1.  See  Comte,  Mill  and  Spencer, — Watson,  pp.  27-34. 

2.  Science  of  Ethics,— Lesley  Stephens,   (1882),  chap.  3. 

3.  See  A  Review  of  Evolutional  Ethics.     Williams,  part  I,  p.  28.     Ibid, 
part  II,  Introduction  and  chap.  i.    Also  "From  Comte  to  Benjamin  Kidd," 
—Mackintosh,  pp.  76-77.    Pioneers  of  Evolution,— Clodd,  pp.  139-143,  158- 


82  The  Individual  and  Society 

"Origin  of  Species"  he  seems  to  deprive  the  creature  of  all 
altruistic  instincts,  while  in  his  ethics  endows  him  with  altruistic 
impulses  so  strong  that  the  creature  will  risk  his  own  life  to 
save  the  life  of  another.  In  the  third  and  fourth  chapters  of 
the  "Origin  of  Species"  we  have  a  picture  more  cruel  and  selfish 
than  that  portrayed  in  the  "Status  Naturalis :"  "what  a  struggle 
must  have  gone  on  for  centuries  between  the  several  kinds  of 
trees,  each  annually  scattering  its  seed  by  the  thousand;  what 
war  between  insect  and  insect — between  insects,  snails  and  other 
animals  with  birds  and  beasts  of  prey, — all  striving  to  increase, 
all  feeding  on  each  other  .  .  .  such  is  the  war  of  nature, 
the  struggle  for  existence."1  Here  Darwin  seems  to  be  a  Hobbist 
of  the  most  pronounced  type  so  far  at  least  as  altruism  is  con- 
cerned, finding  nothing  in  the  creature  but  self -regarding  impulses 
in  its  struggle  for  existence;  but  in  his  ethics  this  view  of  the 
human  creature  is  so  modified  that  he  not  only  finds  in  man  the 
altruistic  instinct,  but  declares  it  is  so  strong  in  him  that  he  will 
frequently  disregard  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  and  risk  his 
life  even  to  save  a  stranger.2  Moreover,  he  finds  in  man's  ape- 
like progenitors,  evidences  of  strong  altruistic  impulses  which 
impel  the  creature  to  actions  very  different  from  that  described 
in  the  "Origin  of  Species."  He  refers  to  the  action  of  a  baboon, 
who  at  the  risk  of  his  own  life  returned  from  a  place  of  safety  and 
faced  a  pack  of  dogs  alone  to  save  a  young  baboon,  who  finding 
himself  separated  from  the  others  and  surrounded  with  dogs,  was 
loudly  calling  for  help.3  He  refers  to  a  number  of  other  cases 
in  which  there  are  unmistakable  evidences  of  the  altruistic  in- 
stincts in  man's  ape-like  progenitors.4  This  apparent  inconsistency 
in  his  treatment  of  the  egoistic  and  altruistic  instincts  does  not, 
however  suggest  any  confusion  in  his  mind  regarding  his  concep- 
tion of  society  as  an  organism ;  for  while  he  may  not  have 
apprehended  it  as  clearly  as  Stephens,  or  expressed  it  as  fully  as 
he,  he  is  no  less  positive  in  his  opposition  to  the  atomic  views  of  the 


Origin  of  Species.    Darwin,  chap.  3,  p.  56. 

2.  See  Descent  of  Man,  p.  no. 

3.  Ibid,  pp.  101-103. 

4.  Ibid,  chap.  4.     See  Genetic  Psychology,— Kirkpatrick,  for  similar  evi- 
dence, (1911),  PP.  97-98. 


The  Individual  and  Society  83 

preceding  century.  Darwin  was  convinced  that  any  theory  that 
sought  to  explain  society  in  terms  of  individualism  was  false; 
the  facts  of  evolution  had  demonstrated  to  him,  beyond  doubt, 
the  historical  continuity  of  the  race  and  the  organic  nature  of 
human  society. 

Leslie  Stephen,  whose  adoption  of  the  Darwinian  theories,  so 
far  at  least  as  they  relate  to  the  social  organism  and  the  continuity 
of  the  race,  is  even  more  pronounced  than  Darwin  in  his  opposi- 
tion to  any  view  of  society  which  regards  it  as  a  mechanical  aggre- 
gate of  individuals ;  and  in  his  defense  of  the  organic  theory,  he 
goes  beyond  Spencer  or  any  of  his  contemporaries. 

ORGANIC  CONCEPTION  OF  SOCIETY.— STEPHEN. 

Stephen  considers  the  atomic  theory  of  the  enlightenment  as  a 
most  irrational  explanation  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  human 
society,  and  declared  that  such  a  view  "was  due  to  their  refusal 
to  take  into  account  the  true  nature  of  the  social  organism,  and 
considered  society  as  a  simple  combination  of  independent  atoms 

.  .  .  an  aggregate  built  up  of  the  uniform  atoms  called 
men."1  Society  not  being  an  aggregate  of  such  independent 
atoms,  we  must,  therefore,  "consider  the  race  as  forming  what  is 
called  a  social  organism,  or  as  I  have  preferred  to  call  it,  forming 
a  social  tissue."2  Any  other  view  of  society  he  considered  not 
only  false  but  unreasonable,  in  the  face  of  the  facts  presented 
by  evolutional  ethics.  "It  is  sheer  nonsense  to  speak  of  a  man 
as  if  he  either  might  or  might  not  be  in  some  respects  independent 
of  society.  ...  A  man  not  dependent  upon  a  race  is  as 
meaningless'  a  phrase  as  an  apple  that  does  not  grow  on  a 
tree."3  Like  Comte,  Stephen  saw  how  absurd  it  was  to  speak  of 
an  independent  ego,  or  attempt,  as  did  the  moralists  of  the  pre- 
ceding century,  to  explain  all  reality  in  terms  of  individualism, 
since  "the  individual  is  dependent  at  every  moment  upon  his 


1.  The  Science  of  Ethics,  pp.  360-361. 

2.  Ibid,   chap.   3,   sec.   31,   p.    126.     Stephen   prefers   "social   tissue"   to 
"social  organism"  because  a  nation  has  not  the  unity  of  the  higher  organ- 
isms.   It  is  limited  by  external  circumstances,  not,  like  them,  by  internal 
constitution. 

3.  Ibid,  pp.  95-96. 


84  The  Individual  and  Society 

contemporaries  as  well  as  upon  his  ancestors."1  For  Stephen, 
as  for  all  the  thinkers  of  the  ipth  century  who  embrace  the 
organic  conception  of  human  nature,  the  true  human  point  of 
view  is  not  individual  but  social,  man  as  man  cannot  be  taken 
as  the  starting  point  of  social  philosophy,  since,  as  they  affirm, 
the  individual  man  is  the  product  of  society;  his  intellectual 
powers  and  moral  habits  are  alike  formed  in  him  by  social 
influence,  his  very  life  being  a  part  of  the  intellectual  and  social 
life  of  his  times.  Go  back,  says  modern  science,  as  far  as  you 
will  in  the  history  of  the  race  and  you  never  come  to  anything 
that  in  any  degree  corresponds  to  the  isolated  individual  of  the 
enlightenment.  The  individual  of  the  older  theories,  as  evolu- 
tionary ethics  has  shown,  is  a  mere  abstraction,  man  is  never 
known  except  as  a  member  of  some  kind  of  society  and  his  rela- 
tion to  it  is  not  merely  external  and  mechanical  but  internal  and 
organic.2  His  instincts  and  desires,  which  are  the  spring  of  his 
actions,  would  be  inexplicable  without  the  presupposition  of  some 
sort  of  organized  society  of  family  or  tribe  as  the  field  of  their 
operation  and  satisfaction.  His  intellectual  development  and 
moral  training  as  Comte  pointed  out  are  only  possible  by  means 
of  such  social  institutions  as  language,  the  family,  the  school  and 
the  work-shop:  indeed,  this  organic  conception  of  human  nature, 
which  the  I9th  century  opposed  to  that  of  the  enlightenment, 
shows  that  the  individual  never  did  exist  and  never  could  exist 
as  an  isolated  atom;  that  his  life  takes  its  form  at  every  point 
from  the  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  his  social  environment." 
Such  are  the  social  views  of  Stephen  and  of  the  thinkers,  who  in 
the  1 9th  century  accepted  the  scientific  or  evolutionary  view  of 
human  nature,  and  expressed  it  with  more  or  less  clearness  and 
insight  in  opposing  the  atomic  theories  of  the  preceding  century.4 
Among  these  thinkers  we  must  include  Spencer  whom  Muirhead 
thinks  might  be  called  the  founder  of  the  organic  doctrine. 


1.  Ibid,  p.  108. 

2.  The  Facts  of  the  Moral  Life, — Wundt,  chap.  Ill,  sec.  I  pp.  127-134. 

3.  See  Comte,  Mill  and  Spencer, — Watson,  pp.  165-183.     See  also  Chris- 
tianity and  the  New  Idealism.     Eucken,  (1913),  pp.  31-39. 

4.  See  Muirhead's  Elements  of  Ethics,   (1899),  chap.  3. 


The  Individual  and  Society  85 

SPENCER'S  CONCEPTION  OF  SOCIETY. — SOCIETY  AS 
EVOLVED. 

Spencer  accepts  the  organic  view  of  society  in  opposition  to  the 
atomic  theory  of  the  i8th  century;  and  though  he  does  not 
expound  it  with  the  same  clearness  of  insight  as  Leslie  Stephen, 
yet  he  recognized  the  above  facts  as  implied  in  the  scientific 
doctrine,  and  with  the  exponents  of  the  new  science  he  repudiates 
the  individualistic  theory  of  the  enlightenment.  Spencer,  like 
Comte,  was  dominated  by  two  conflicting  ideas.  His  early  train- 
ing which  fostered  a  spirit  of  independence,  led  him  to  embrace 
a  view  of  life  inconsistent  with  his  later  evolutionary  views. 
This  made  him  chafe  under  the  yoke  of  society  and  led  him  in 
the  practical  field  to  become  the  most  uncompromising  champion 
of  complete  individual  freedom.1  His  acceptance,  however,  of 
evolution,  the  scientific  view  of  human  nature,  made  him  embrace 
the  organic  conception  of  human  society,  which  was  a  refutation 
of  individualism.  These  two  tendencies  in  Spencer's  thought  led 
him,  as  it  did  Comte,  into  many  inconsistencies  and  they  help  us 
to  understand  his  attempted  conciliation  in  the  I3th  and  I4th 
chapters  of  the  "Data  of  Ethics/'  and  his  desire  to  find  a  place 
for  the  ego  in  a  world  order,  which  he  found  so  dominated  by 
the  social.  As  the  purpose  of  this  thesis  is  not  to  criticise  and 
expound  the  entire  system  of  the  writers  with  whom  it  deals,  but 
to  point  out  their  social  or  individualistic  conception  of  human 
nature,  and  to  show  the  sharp  distinction  between  the  atomic  or 
individualistic  theory  of  the  enlightenment,  and  the  organic  or 
social  views  of  the  igth  century ;  we  shall,  therefore,  not  attempt 
to  deal  with  the  inconsistencies  found  in  his  synthetic  philosophy 
—caused  largely  by  his  desire  to  find  a  place  for  the  ego  in  society 
— but  will  confine  ourselves,  as  far  as  possible,  to  tracing  his 
socialistic  conceptions  of  human  nature  as  they  stand  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  individualistic  views  of  the  i8th  century. 

Spencer  in  accepting  the  organic  view  of  nature,  repudiates  the 
individualism  of  the  preceding  century.  Society,  for  him,  is  more 
than  the  mere  gathering  together  of  individuals  into  a  group.  In  his 


i.  See  Problems  of  Human  Life.    Eucken,  pp.  535-536.    Ethical  Systems 
Wundt,  pp.  154-159. 


86  The  Individual  and  Society 

"Principles  of  Sociology"  Spencer  shows  that  the  conception  of 
society  as  an  aggregate  of  individuals  is  not  only  untenable  but 
impossible,  since,  as  modern  science  has  shown,  society  is  an 
organism  whose  members  have  been  interdependent  and  co- 
operative from  the  beginning;  therefore,  he  maintains,  the  indi- 
vidual can  no  more  sever  himself  from  society  and  exist,  than 
he  can  sever  the  head  from  the  body  and  live.1  He  points  out 
in  his  "Principles  of  Biology,"  that  as  the  complex  organism 
is  not  formed  by  a  combination  of  independent  cells,  but  that  in 
each  cell  itself  from  which  the  organism  develops,  there  is  latent 
the  principle  of  organization,  which  is  manifested  in  the  growth 
of  the  complex  organism,  neither  is  society  the  artificial  product 
of  independent  individuals  drawn  together  by  fear  or  self-interest, 
but  an  organism  whose  members  are  inter-related  and  inseparable. 
Spencer  looked  upon  the  individual  as  organically  related  to  aJl 
members  of  the  race,  not  only  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of 
their  flesh,  as  Bixby  phrases  it,  but  mind  of  their  mind.2  Indeed, 
the  chief  significance  of  his  "Principles  of  Psychology"  lies  in 
the  fact  that  although  based  on  empirical  philosophy,  it  emphasizes 
the  impossibility  of  explaining  individual  consciousness  by  the 
experience  of  the  individual  alone:  we  cannot  hope,  he  says,  to 
explain  the  conscious  life  of  the  individual  from  his  own  ex- 
perience alone,  we  must  go  back  to  the  experience  of  the  races.8 
This  relation  between  the  individual  and  the  race,  which  Spencer 
brings  forward  in  his  psychological  and  biological  treatment  ot 
the  subject,  became  of  paramount  importance  in  his  sociology, 
for  in  it  he  emphasizes  the  fact  that  every  individual  has  an 
original  substratum  in  his  character  which  is  traceable  to  the 
earlier  history  of  the  race.4  Furthermore,  in  his  "Principles  of 
Sociology"  he  repudiates  the  Hobbist  conception  of  man  as  an 
independent  atom,  declaring  that  even  the  savage  knows  that  he 
is  no  self -sufficient  unit,  but  owes  his  existence  to  parents  who 
have  begotten  him  and  nursed  him,  and  is  conscious  that  his  life 
is  conditioned  on  his  fellows  for  its  comfort  or  misery.  Civiliza- 


1.  Principles  of  Sociology,  vol.  II,  p.  344,  vol.  I,  pp.  486-487. 

2.  See  Ethics  of  Evolution.    J.  T.  Bixby,  p.  33,  (1900). 

3.  History  of  Modern  Philosophy, — Hoffding,  pp.  454-455. 

4.  Ibid,  p.  477. 


The  Individual  and  Society  87 

tion,  he  says,  binds  rather  than  loosens  this  dependence  of  the 
individual  on  the  race,  so  that  we  never  reach  a  stage  in  the 
historical  development  of  man,  where  we  can  find  the  isolated 
individual  of  the  enlightenment ;  but  on  the  contrary,  we  find  the 
social  ties  which  bind  men  to  each  other  gradually  extending 
from  family  to  tribe,  from  tribe  to  nation,  and  from  nation  to 
continent,  till  the  whole  human  race  is  immeshed  in  one  closely 
woven  net  of  mutual  relations.  The  growth  and  development  of 
the  individual  is  something,  therefore,  to  which  all  the  past  has 
contributed.  Like  Comte,  viewing  society  as  an  organism,  Spencer 
sees  in  the  futility  of  the  enlightenment  to  relate  the  individual 
to  the  social,  a  waste  of  energy,  since  man  has  always  been  a 
part  of  society,  united  to  it  as  an  organ  to  the  body,  from  which  it 
cannot  be  severed  and  live  j1  and  he  criticised  the  utilitarian  school 
for  treating  society  as  an  aggregate  rather  than  as  an  organism. 
Furthermore,  Spencer  attempts  by  his  theory  of  evolution,  not 
only  to  prove  that  the  self  of  the  i8th  century,  whom  the  thinkers 
of  that  age  were  trying  to  relate  to  society,  was  nothing  but  an 
abstraction,  but  through  his  historical  method  he  also  seeks  to 
prove  that  their  moral  judgments  are  untenable :  for  if  our  moral 
ideas  have  a  history,  as  he  maintains  they  do,  there  can  be  no 
place  in  his  system  for  the  rationalistic  theories  of  the  enlighten- 
ment. In  Spencer's  ethics  there  is  no  room  for  either  innate  moral 
ideas  or  the  atomic  theory  of  society ;  for  since  our  moral  sense  is 
nothing  but  "the  experience  of  utility  organized  arid  consolidated 
through  all  past  generations,"  intuitional  moral  judgments  must, 
therefore,  be  eliminated  by  him ;  and  as  human  society  is  an 
organism  whose  members  are  related  to  it  as  our  members  are 
related  to  the  body,  the  isolated  ego  of  the  i8th  century  can,  there- 
fore, find  no  place  in  the  social  philosophy  of  Spencer. 

SPENCER'S  RECONCILIATION  OF  EGOISM  AND  ALTRUISM  IN 
THE  PRESENT  AND  IDEAL  SOCIETY. 

Spencer  recognizes  an  element  of  truth  in  both  the  intuitional 
and  hedonic  ethics,  though  he  disagrees  with  the  content  of  the 


i.  Principles  of  Sociology,  vol.  I,  3rd  ed.,  (1898),  pp.  452-453,  463,  486-487. 
The  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  240.    Spencer. 


88  The  Individual  and  Society 

one  and  with  the  method  of  the  other.  He  rejects  the  doctrine 
of  innate  moral  ideas  held  by  intuitional  ethics,  though  he  agrees 
with  them  that  the  intuition  of  a  moral  faculty  should  guide 
our  conduct,  but  he  refuses  to  accept  their  origin  of  this  moral 
faculty,  and  declares  that  these  intuitions  are  not  divinely  given, 
but  are  the  "slowly  organized  results  of  experience  received 
by  the  race  while  living  in  the  presence  of  these  conditions."  In 
his  criticism  of  hedonic  ethics,  he  accepts  their  ultimate  end, 
but  differs  with  them  in  their  method  of  attaining  it.  The  dif- 
ference between  Spencer's  evolutionary  ethics  at  this  point,  and 
hedonic  ethics,  does  not  lie  in  the  ultimate  end  which  they  each 
recommend,  but  in  the  proximate  end,  that  is,  it  does  not  concern 
the  object  to  be  reached,  but  the  method  of  reaching  it;  the 
end  for  both  is  happiness,  but  Spencer  believes  it  is  best  attained 
by  keeping  it  in  the  background,  while  the  hedonist  makes  it  both 
the  immediate  and  ultimate  end  of  his  striving.  "I  admit,  says 
Spencer,  "that  happiness  is  the  ultimate  end  to  be  contemplated, 
but  I  do  not  concede  that  it  should  be  the  proximate  end."1  Spen- 
cer admits  here  his  failure  to  withdraw  completely  from  tradi- 
tional hedonism,  and  in  making  life  good  or  bad  according  as  it 
does  or  does  not  bring  a  surplus  of  agreeable  feelings,2  he  departs 
from  his  original  and  more  consistent  view, — a  view  that  did 
not  demand  this  hedonic  element  since  it  made  the  life  of  the 
organism,  as  Stephen  makes  the  health  of  it,  the  ultimate  end 
of  moral  conduct, — and  he  therefore  seeks  in  his  absolute  ethics 
an  ideal  state  in  which  actions  are  followed  with  pleasure,  and 
pain  is  not  a  concomitant.  Spencer  finds,  however,  that  man 
has  altruistic  as  well  as  egoistic  impulses,  that  self-sacrifice  is  no 
less  primordial  than  self-preservation,3  and  that  neither  of  these 
elements  alone  can  produce  an  ideal  state,  he  therefore  in  his 
"Compromise"  introduces  the  Butlerian  principle  of  reasonable 
self-love  which  avows  the  rights  of  both  alter  and  ego  and  the 
need  of  both  in  a  world  whole.  Spencer,  while  recognizing  that 
the  individual  has  certain  rights,  is  conscious  of  the  dominance 
of  the  social,  and  therefore,  endeavors  to  find  a  place  in  the  social 


1.  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  51. 

2.  Ibid.  p.  302. 

3.  Ibid,  p.  235. 


The  Individual  and  Society  89 

order  where  the  ego  may  do  its  work  untrammeled  by  its  environ- 
ment. In  his  "Conciliation"  he  tries  to  work  out  the  balance 
of  interest  between  the  two  on  a  basis  of  purely  relative  ethics, 
but  failing  to  find  a  solution  of  the  problem  in  his  "Concilia- 
tion," he  looks  forward  to  a  future  form  of  "absolute  ethics" 
which  finds  the  "ultimate  man"  in  an  atmosphere  untainted  by 
either  egoism  or  altruism.1  Spencer  sees  in  the  participation  by 
both  alter  and  ego  in  the  totality  of  life,  the  first  step  toward 
reconciliation,  and  finds  in  his  "absolute  ethics"  the  proper  con- 
ditions in  which  ego  and  alter  may  live  in  harmony  and  do  their 
work  without  let  or  hindrance.  Spencer,  however,  is  forced  to 
turn  away  from  his  idea  of  "absolute  ethics,"  for  he  recognizes 
that  such  an  ideal  state  is  unattainable  with  human  nature  and  hu- 
man society  constituted  as  they  are,  he  is,  therefore,  compelled  to 
fall  back  on  a  relative  ethics  as  the  only  basis  of  reconciliation  be- 
tween the  ego  and  the  alter.  In  all  this  effort  of  compromise 
and  conciliation,  Spencer  is  seeking  a  place  for  the  individual  in 
an  ethical  system  which  he  finds  so  dominantly  socialized  that 
the  ego  has  become  little  more  than  a  slave  to  its  environment, 
whose  life  must  be  sacrificed  for  the  safety  of  society  when  such 
is  endangered.2  Spencer  sees  in  the  coming  victory  of  the  indus- 
trial over  the  militant  stage,  which  still  coexist,  the  hope  of  indi- 
vidual freedom,  and  he  believes  that  social  evolution  is  gradually 
making  possible  a  state  in  which  the  claims  of  the  individual  shall 
no  longer  be  ignored  by  the  social,  and  society  will  come  to 
recognize  that  she  needs  the  self  just  as  much  as  the  self  needs 
society.3  This  conception  of  the  self  and  its  relation  to  society 
is  very  different,  however,  from  that  of  the  enlightenment  for 
Spencer  is  not  here  trying  to  relate  the  individual  to  the  social, 
but  to  find  a  place  in  the  social  order,  to  which  he  is  already 
related,  where  he  may  have  an  opportunity  for  self-realization. 

Perhaps  a  comparison  between  the  older  utilitarian  views  and 
that  of  Spencer  might  be  instituted  at  this  point,  so  as  to  bring 
into  sharper  contrast  the  ethical  ideals  of  the  enlightenment  and 
those  of  the  iQth  century.  In  Spencer  appears  a  statement  of 


1.  Ibid,  chap.  15. 

2.  Ibid,  pp.   144-146,  170-173- 

3.  Ibid,  pp.  275-276. 


90  The  Individual  and  Society 

the  moral  problem  which  stands  out  as  the  very  antipode  of  the 
Hobbist  system.  Where  Hobbes  had  premised  the  ego,  Spencer 
assumes  the  social ;  where  Hobbes  had  sought  to  remove  the  ego 
for  the  sake  of  establishing  society,  Spencer  attempts  to  conceive 
of  the  social  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  egoistic  possible.  The 
supreme  difference  between  the  two,  however,  appears  in  their 
respective  anthropologies,  in  accordance  with  which,  Hobbes  can 
find  nothing  in  man  but  the  individualistic,  while  Spencer  finds 
only  the  social.  Indeed,  with  Spencer,  the  beginnings  of  'con- 
duct are  to  be  dated  from  a  stratum  of  life  far  below  the  simple, 
unorganized  life  of  the  community,1  so  that  we  observe  the 
Spencerian  ethics  beginning  with  the  'physical  view  of  conduct/ 
in  which  all  is  indefinite,  incoherent,  homogeneous,  far  removed 
from  any  suggestion  of  self-conscious  individuality.  Even  upon 
the  second  stage,  where  the  'biological  view'  is  considered,  the 
principle  of  conduct  instead  of  being  truly  human  and  individual, 
is  simply  organic  and  social.  From  the  third  or  psychological 
point  of  view,  the  principle  of  conduct  is  such  as  has  its  bearing 
upon  the  beast  as  well  as  the  human  being,  so  that  it  is  not  until 
we  arrive  at  the  fourth,  or  social  view  point,  that  the  humanistic 
receives  independent  treatment.  Even  here  the  individualistic  is 
submerged  in  the  social,  so  that  it  is  only  at  the  very  conclusion 
of  his  work,  as  we  have  seen,  that  Spencer  finds  the  place  for 
the  ego.  While  Spencer  does  not  fail  to  accord  certain  rights  to 
the  individual,  his  system,  so  representative  of  contemporary 
thought,  is  as  absolutely  social  as  Hobbes'  was  absolutely  indi- 
vidual. What  with  Hobbes  was  the  Alpha,  is  here  the  Omega; 
thus  did  the  two  periods  of  modern  thougth  undergo  complete 
transmutation  and  transvaluation. 

III.    DISCUSSION  AND  CRITICISM. 

Our  study  of  the  two  preceding  centuries  has  shown  us  how 
widely  they  differ  in  their  conception  of  the  nature  and  origin 
of  society.  We  have  seen  that  the  thinkers  of  the  i8th  century, 
finding  reality  in  the  individual  alone,  were  led  to  an  individualistic 
view  of  human  life,  and  to  the  erroneous  idea  that  society  was 


i.  The  Data  of  Ethics,  pp.  112-114. 


The  Individual  and  Society  91 

composed  of  separate  individual  atoms,  drawn  together  for  mutual 
interests :  while  the  moralists  of  the  iQth  century  finding  reality 
in  the  totality  of  the  race,  were  led  to  view  society  as  an  organism, 
and  the  individual  as  merely  a  part  of  the  whole.  Both  of  these 
views  of  human  life,  as  we  shall  point  out  later,  are  inadequate ; 
the  former,  because  of  its  failure  to  grasp  the  corporate  life  of 
humanity,  and  the  latter  by  its  failure  to  find  in  the  organism,  a 
place  for  the  selfhood  of  the  ego. 

A  conception  of  life,  that  sees  in  individual  happiness  the 
measure  of  moral  values,  and  therefore,  expresses  human  welfare 
in  terms  of  mere  pleasure,  is  fallacious;  for  it  does  not  take 
account  of  man's  inner  striving  to  rise  above  nature,  nor  his 
ability  to  live  without  pleasure.  The  inability,  not  only  of  the 
egoistic  hedonism,  but  even  of  the  altruistic  utilitarianism  of  the 
1 8th  century,  to  see  in  the  general  happiness  anything  more  than 
the  sum  of  separate  individual  happinesses,  was  due  to  their 
individualistic  conception  of  human  life.  Humanity,  for  these 
moralists,  was  made  up  of  individual  men,  hence  a  social  utilitarian 
is  as  self -contradictory  as  an  egoistic  hedonism  of  the  Hobbist 
type  is  untenable,  for  its  fundamental  assumptions  conflict  with 
each  other.  'It  defines,  for  example,  the  moral  end  as  the  welfare 
of  the  ivhole  of  human  society,  and  then  proceeds,  as  Wundt 
points  out,  to  resolve  this  whole  into  disconnected  atoms.'1  The 
position  of  these  thinkers,  therefore,  becomes  untenable,  owing  to 
the  irreconciliation  of  these  opposite  tendencies;  for  their  indi- 
vidualistic theory  of  society  led  them  to  an  egoism  which  their 
more  correct  ethical  instincts  sought  to  repudiate. 

In  regarding  the  world  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual 
alone,  the  moralists  of  the  enlightenment  were  thus  led  to  adopt 
a  view  of  philosophy  that  made  life  consist  of  a  sum  of  pleasurable 
feelings,  with  self  as  the  center ;  and  in  conceiving  of  self  in  an 
abstract  way,  apart  from  its  social  relations,  they  were  led,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  look  upon  society  as  an  aggregate  of  independent 
atoms,  whose  relation  to  the  body  politic  was  analogous  to  stones 
in  a  building.  With  the  dawn  of  evolution,  the  point  of  reality 
has  been  shifted  from  the  individual  to  the  race.  We  are  in- 
debted, therefore,  to  evolutionary  ethics  for  the  emphasis  placed 


i.  Ethical  Systems,— Wundt,  chap.  4,  sec.  3. 


92  The  Individual  and  Society 

by  the  moralists  of  the  iQth  century  on  the  organic  nature  of 
society;  for  they  have  shown  us  that  the  self  in  not  an  isolated 
atom,  but  is  only  comprehensible  as  a  member  of  society  whose 
moral  judgments  reflect  a  moral  order  already  established  in  its 
environment.1  They  have  also  pointed  out  that  the  theories  of 
independent  rights,  which  the  individualists  of  the  preceding  cen- 
tury put  forth  in  behalf  of  the  ego,  were  nothing  but  arbitrary 
assumptions.  The  statement  of  Rousseau,  that  man  was  born 
free,  i.  e.,  independent  of  the  laws,  habits  and  conventions  of 
society,  they  have  shown  by  the  historical  continuity  of  the  race, 
to  be  fallacious ;  the  child,  they  assert,  who  comes  into  the  world 
inherits  everything  he  has  from  a  previous  state  of  society. 
Indeed,  the  evolutionist  has  gone  so  far  in  his  emphasis  upon  the 
organic  nature  of  society,  that  he  has  robbed  the  self  of  all  moral 
content.  The  individual  as  such,  ceases  to  have  value  except  as  a 
means  to  an  end.  D'Arcy  criticises  the  evolutionists  for  identify- 
ing the  selfhood  of  the  individual  with  his  social  setting;  'for  while 
the  body  of  man  may  be  a  mere  eddy  in  the  stream  of  cosmic 
evolution,  the  man  as  a  self,  a  spirit  cannot,  for  the  stream  only 
exists  for  him  as  constituted  by  him,'  and  it  is  the  ignoring  of  that 
fact  by  the  evolutionists,  that  has  led  them  to  view  the  individual 
as  a  mere  element  'in  a  complex  whole,  a  member  of  an  organism, 
the  slave  of  his  social  order.'2 

In  looking  upon  man  as  nothing  more  than  a  part  of  a  great 
cosmic  system,  whose  existence,  like  that  of  the  tree  or  the  beast, 
is  the  result  of  natural  law,  the  evolutionists  have  robbed  the 
ego  of  its  individuality  and  freedom:  and  by  treating  the  term 
organism,  as  if  it  were,  in  and  of  itself,  a  reality  instead  of  an 
analogy,  they  have  been  led  to  conclusions  which  even  they  find 
necessary  to  modify.  Hence,  we  find  Spencer  conceding  certain 
rights  to  the  individual,  which  are,  he  admits,  part  of  his  very 
personality,  and  seeking  through  his  conception  of  an  ideal  state 
to  find  a  place  in  the  social  order  where  the  ego  may  assert  its 
selfhood  and  refuse  to  be  a  mere  eddy  in  the  stream,  while 
Stephen  seeks  to  save  the  identity  of  the  self  by  making  it  possible 
for  the  ego  to  express  its  individuality  through  the  virtues  of 


1.  See   Individual   and   Society, — Baldwin,  chap.    I,   sec.   3.     See  Value 
and  Dignity  of  Human  Life, — Shaw,  pp.  121-124. 

2.  See  Short  History  of  Ethics,— D'Arcy,  Part  III,  chap.  4. 


The  Individual  and  Society  93 

courage,  temperance  and  truth,  which,  he  says,  strengthens  the 
ego,  and  at  the  same  time  contributes  to  the  health  of  the  social 
organism.1  Furthermore,  the  evolutionist  is  open  to  criticism  in 
his  anthropological  conception  of  the  inner  nature  of  man,  for 
in  making  man's  inner  nature  the  product  of  natural  law  and  the 
accumulation  of  past  experiences,  he  has  emptied  the  ego  of  all 
spiritual  content,  and  man's  inner  nature  refuses  to  be  thus  dealt 
with,  and  compells  us  to  ask,  whence  conies  this  inner  compulsion 
which  we  find  in  man,  this  sense  of  duty  and  obligation,  is  it  also 
a  development  of  generation  after  generation  from  external  pres- 
sure? That  is  the  outstanding  difficult  question  which  the  inner 
nature  of  man  compells  the  evolutionists  to  answer,  and  their 
theory  of  the  tribal  self  fails  to  explain  it;  for  experience  has 
shown  that  the  individual  is  more  than  a  member  of  the  herd, 
that  he  has  an  inner  spiritual  nature  that  cannot  be  reduced  to 
the  "voice  of  the  tribal  self  sounding  in  his  ear,"  and  no  one,  not 
even  the  evolutionist,  is  prepared  to  say  that  he  is  conscious  that 
this  inner  compulsion  of  obligation,  of  duty,  is  to  him  obviously  a 
pressure  from  without,  for  we  cannot  make  that  transfer  in  our 
consciousness.  In  other  words,  in  the  development  of  all  the 
moral  concepts  of  our  race,  this  inner  sense  of  obligation — this 
categorical  imperative — that  which  says  to  us  "thou  shalt  not" 
is  not  a  matter  of  custom  or  experience,  but  comes  out  of  our 
own  personality,  and  that  particular  part  of  our  personality  which 
has  not  been  developed  wholly  by  external  pressure  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.2  The  evolutionists  of  to-day  have  a  phrase 
which  is  very  significant,  and  which  illustrates  the  point  we  are 
seeking  to  emphasize,  that  this  inner  compulsion  is  not  the  out- 
come of  external  pressure,  they  speak  of  "orthogenetic  develop- 
ment" i.  e.,  development  that  has  been  straight  away, — no  pres- 
sure of  environment  to  change  its  course,  it  has  been  a  develop- 
ment straight  to  the  end.  We  are  willing  to  admit  to-day,  in  our 
criticism  of  naturistic  ethics,  that  a  great  body  of  customs  has 
come  down  to  us,  which  make  for  the  welfare  of  the  community, 
and  that  the  experience  of  our  ancestors  has  shown  us  that  dis- 
honesty should  be  avoided,  and  that  lying  is  hurtful,  both  to  the 


1.  Science  of  Ethics,  chap.  5. 

2.  See  The  Ethical  Philosophy  of  Sidgwick,— Hayward,  chap.  3,  sec.  J 


94  The  Individual  and  Society 

individual  and  society;  nevertheless,  there  has  been  all  along, 
this  straight  away  sense  of  obligation,  and  this  appeared  not  as 
variable,  not  as  growing  generation  after  generation,  but  appear- 
ing as  constant,  and  as  a  power  that  is  continually  urging  on  this 
stream  of  thought,  or  to  use  the  evolutionary  phrase,  "ortho- 
genetic  development"  is  descriptive  of  this  feeling  of  obligation. 
The  atttiude  of  the  present  in  its  criticism  of  evolutionary 
•ethics  might  be  expressed  briefly  by  saying  that  evolution  ac- 
counts for  about  every  question  that  can  be  raised  in  the  field 
of  ethics,  until  it  comes  to  touch  this  vital  and  central  question — 
what  is  it  in  human  personality  that  puts  upon  man  this  inner 
compulsion  to  do  and  to  be,  without  any  regard  for  consequences  ? 
Here  its  explanation  is  inadequate  as  all  explanations  must  be 
that  ignore  the  spiritual  in  man;  for  man  is  conscious  that  this 
inner  compulsion  is  not  a  matter  of  his  father,  or  his  father's 
father,  but  comes  out  of  the  depths  of  his  own  personality.  As 
he  listens  to  the  voice  of  conscience,  he  hears,  it  is  true,  the 
reverberations  of  past  experiences,  the  voice  of  the  tribe,  but 
as  he  listens  more  intently,  and  to  be  true  to  himself  he  must 
listen  more  intently,  he  can  hear  the  still  small  voice,  and  it  is 
the  voice  of  his  inner  soul,  that  part  in  him  that  makes  him  more 
than  a  portion  of  a  cosmic  system  or  member  of  a  group;  and 
it  is  that  spirit  in  him,  which  the  evolutionists  have  ignored,  that 
refuses  to  be  an  eddy  in  the  stream  or  a  mere  part  of  the  cosmic 
system,  and  which  led  the  individualists  of  the  I9th  century  to 
repudiate  the  social  order  and  assert  the  selfhood  of  the  ego. 
It  is  true  that  these  egoists  of  the  iQth  century,  who  would  save 
the  ego  from  the  dominance  of  the  social  and  that  too  by  no 
gentle  method,  were  not  concerned  with  the  philosophical  deduc- 
tions of  evolutional  ethics,  nevertheless,  they  were  conscious  of 
the  general  tendency  to  belittle  the  ego  and  magnify  the  alter, 
and  fearing  for  the  ego  in  its  submerged  state  in  the  social 
order,  they  repudiate  society  and  seek  reality  alone  in  the  individ- 
ual, as  Hobbes  had  sought  it  in  the  ego.  The  ego  of  the  super- 
man, however,  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  "Leviathan;" 
if  loving  the  self  was  the  dominant  trait  of  the  Hobbist  ego, 
willing  the  self  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  modern 
ego.  "To  be  himself,  man  must  will  himself.  Selfhood  is  an 


The  Individual  and  Society  95 

inward  creation,  not  an  outward  fact;  it  must  be  achieved  not 
simply  accepted.  ...  To  achieve  selfhood,  the  ego  must 
make  the  ego  an  object,  and  instead  of  accepting  selfhood  as  a 
matter  of  necessity,  as  Hobbes  suggested,  the  ego  must  follow 
the  freedom  of  the  Fichtean  'Ich'  which  posits  itself."1 

In  their  attempt  at  self-realization,  the  individualists  of  the 
ipth  century  refuse  to  be  bound  by  the  customs  of  the  social 
order,  and  like  Emerson,  look  upon  "society  as  everywhere  in 
conspiracy  against  the  manhood  of  every  one  of  its  members."2 
It  is  that  conception  of  society  that  justifies  Nora  in  "A  Doll's 
House,"  in  asserting  herself  in  defiance  of  the  social  order.  In- 
deed, Ibsen's  egos  know  only  one  law  "Be  thyself,"  and  this  law, 
Brand  attempts  to  obey  in  the  realm  of  spirit,  as  Peer  Gynt 
endeavors  to  do  it  in  the  world  of  sense.  It  is  true  that  this 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  Gyntish  ego  to  erect  a  selfhood  on  the 
basis  of  sense,  like  the  attempt  of  volunteristic  egoism  to  erect 
it  on  the  basis  of  will,  was  doomed  to  failure,  and  Peer  Gynt, 
himself,  fit  only  for  the  button  moulder's  refuse  heap,3  never- 
theless, it  indicates  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  modern  ego  with 
its  world,  and  its  struggle,  at  any  cost,  for  emancipation  and  ego- 
hood.  Indeed,  it  woud  be  difficult  on  any  other  basis,  to  account 
for  such  caricatures  of  the  self  as  we  find  among  the  individ- 
ualists of  the  Baudelarian  type,  for  while  we  would  gladly  escape 
from  an  atmosphere  so  poisonous  and  low,  we  cannot  but  see 
in  it  an  effort  for  freedom  and  selfhood.  Baudelaire,  like  Nietz- 
sche, would  save  the  ego  by  a  transvaluation  of  values  that  makes 
evil  good  and  good  evil,  and  like  Sudermann's  "Magda"  would 
attain  self-realization  by  sinning  and  becoming  greater  than  its 
sin.  A  similar  endeavor  for  freedom  is  seen  in  Stendhal,  whose 
egos,  repudiating  all  moral  standards,  refuse,  like  Stirner,  to  enter 
the  circle  and  submit  to  the  moulding  process  of  social  custom. 
These  men  would  save  the  ego  through  sin  as  Hauptmann  would 
save  it  through  joy,  or  Wagner  through  freedom;  for  just  as 


1.  Value   and   Dignity  of   Human   Life, — Shaw,    Part   II,    sec.    3.     See 
also  Crime  and  Punishment, — Dostoieffsky,  pp.  207-208. 

2.  Essay — Self-reliance, — Emerson. 

3.  Peer  Gynt.,  Act.  V,  Scene  VII,  p.  225.    Egoists,  a  Book  of  the  Super- 
man,— Huncker,  p.  330. 


96  The  Individual  and  Society 

the  "bell-founder"  seeks  self-realization  neither  in  Socratic  knowl- 
edge or  Kantian  morality  but  in  the  idea  of  joy,  and  Siegfried 
through  a  fearlessness  and  freedom  that  defies  the  gods,  so 
Baudelaire  and  Stendhal  seek  through  immoralism  a  self-realiza- 
tion that  would  save  the  selfhood  of  the  ego.  In  these  egoists, 
as  indeed  in  all  the  individualists  of  the  igth  century  regardless 
of  their  method,  there  is  a  desperate  effort  to  get  back  to  the  ego 
as  the  fundamental  basis  of  reality;  for,  like  Stirner,  they  see 
in  the  ego,  and  not  in  the  family,  the  unit  of  the  social  life,1  and 
like  him  would  begin  and  end  with  the  self.2  "So  anxious  is 
current  egoism  to  emancipate  itself  from  the  social  order,  that 
it  does  not  take  the  pains  to  inquire  whether  the  independent 
existence  of  the  self  comes  within  the  range  of  ontological  pos- 
sibility. Indeed,  an  egoist  like  Stirner  destroys  the  self  in  the 
very  moment  that  he  destroys  the  absolute;  while  Nietzsche,  in 
his  opposition  to  the  soul-atomism  of  modern  thought,  negates 
the  metaphysical  basis  upon  which  his  ethical  egoism  rests."3 
The  modern  individualists,  who  in  their  anxiety  to  get  back  to  the 
ego  would  not  hesitate  to  destroy  society  itself,  seem  to  forget 
that  the  individual  is  no  more  fitted  to  be  a  solitaire  than  he  is 
adapted  to  solidarity.  The  individual  needs  a  social  environ- 
ment in  which  to  realize  himself.  He  cannot  detach  himself  from 
his  environment  and  be  happy;  even  Stirner  seems  to  recognize 
that  fact,  and  looks  for  the  time  when  'there  will  come  into 
existence  a  society  in  which  every  man  will  find  room.'4 

There  are  two  tendencies  confronting  us  to-day,  as  they  did, 
though  in  a  slightly  different  form,  the  moralists  of  the  preceding 
century.  The  first  is  the  modern  formulation  of  the  old  Greek 
view  which  regarded  man  as  a  means  to  an  end — an  end  too,  that 
is  outside  himself — the  other  view  regards  man  as  an  end  in 
himself.  The  problem  which  we  must  meet  is  how  to  balance 
these  two  factors ;  how  to  make  them  co-operative  and  reciprocal, 
and  it  is  a  problem,  not  only  of  philosophy,  but  is  the  great  social 
problem  of  our  day.  The  obvious  judgment  is  that  the  extreme 


1.  See  Degeneration, — Max  Nordan,  p.  360. 

2.  Ego  and  His  Own, — Stirner,  Part  II,  sec.  I. 

3.  The  Ego  and  Its  Place  in  the  World,— Shaw,  Bk.  Ill,  sec  4 
4  Ego  and  His  Own,  p.  234. 


The  Individual  and  Society  97 

view  of  either  society  or  individualism  is  inadequate.1  We  must 
never  regard  man  as  a  means  to  an  end,  nor  impede  his  effort  at 
self-realization ;  for  there  are  certain  obligations  which  arise  out 
of  the  very  nature  of  personality,  and  chief  among  them  is  the 
obligation  to  realize  all  the  possibilities  of  that  personality  itself. 
We  feel  within  us  the  individual  springs  of  activity,  the  stirrings 
of  our  own  powers  along  the  lines  of  self  development,  and  any 
institution  that  hinders  such  a  development  impedes  human  prog- 
ress. The  only  true  socialism  that  can  be  defended,  is  a  socialism 
which  in  the  operation  of  the  system  provides  in  some  way  for 
the  realization  of  the  personal  potentiality.  Human  personality 
must  never,  therefore,  be  lost  sight  of  or  become  a  mere  cog  in 
the  wheels  of  our  social  machinery.  Yet  on  the  other  hand,  we 
must  not  lose  sight  of  the  dependence  of  the  ego  on  its  social 
setting,  for  the  preservation  of  the  very  personality  which  we 
have  been  emphasizing :  to  forget  that  is  to  fall  into  an  ipsesistic 
view  of  life  that  would  deprive  the  ego  of  the  very  selfhood 
which  it  is  seeking  to  realize.2  The  individual  cannot  betake  him- 
self to  his  "Ivory  Tower"  and  detach  himself  from  society  if 
he  would  develop  his  personality,  for  man  can  realize  himself 
fully,  only  when  he  finds  himself  in  the  largest  set  of  relations 
which  he  must  normally  sustain  to  his  fellowmen;  and  it  is  only 
in  the  setting  of  these  larger  relations  that  the  largest  development 
can  be  reached.  The  object  of  the  individual  then  is,  to  so  enter 
apon  the  relations  of  life,  as  they  come  before  him,  that  he  can 
increase  the  points  of  contact  with  the  world  about  him.  The 
individual  is  not  merely  responsible  for  the  discharge  of  his 
duties  within  that  particular  system  of  relations,  which  he  finds 
that  he  sustains  naturally  to  the  great  world  about  him,  but  he 
is  above  all  things  else  responsible  for  the  multiplication  of  these 
relations,  so  that  the  individual  must  make  it  his  aim  to  touch  the 
world  at  every  possible  point  of  contact.  It  is  in  this  sense  that 
every  man  makes  his  own  world,  and  in  this  sense  that  alter  and 
ego  are  necessary  for  the  larger  development  of  personality. 
To-day  we  are  not  satisfied  with  solipsism,  the  ego  in  a  "Barrel 


1.  Christianity  and  Modern  Culture, — Shaw,  chap.  9.    Ethical  Systems, — 
Wundt,  p.   174. 

2.  See  Applied  Sociology, — Ward,  chap.  4. 


98  The  Individual  and  Society 

of  Self"  is  too  dwarfish  to  meet  the  approval  of  the  present, 
neither  do  we  want  a  social  system  that  will  so  submerge  the 
ego  as  to  empty  it  of  all  spiritual  content  and  selfhood,  but  we 
are  seeking  a  point  of  view  that  will  clearly  bring  together,  in 
the  proper  synthesis,  these  two  great  factors — the  individual 
and  society — and  this  can  be  done,  not  by  denying  to  the  self  its 
right  to  live  and  participate  in  the  world's  work,  nor  by  repudi- 
ating the  social  order  and  upholding  a  doctrine  of  egohood  where 
the  view  of  self  is  that  of  blind  solipsism,  but  by  conceiving  society 
as  the  arena  in  which  man  achieves  his  selfhood,  and  her  institu- 
tions, the  point  of  contact  between  the  ego  and  his  world.  Rous- 
seau, like  these  egoists  of  the  iQth  century,  was,  therefore,  in 
error  when  he  said  that  we  should  detach  ourselves  from  the 
institutions  of  society,  for  the  institution  wherever  we  find  it  *s 
the  incarnation  of  a  thought,  which  in  the  form  of  a  set  of  human 
purposes  has  been  working  toward  definite  ends,  bringing  the 
lesults  of  many  minds  and  activities  to  a  single  purpose.  Indeed, 
the  institution  is  the  manifestation  of  a  great  human  idea,  which 
has  come  into  some  concrete  realization.  This  idea,  that  is  slowly 
but  surely  emphasizing  itself  in  the  world,  now  in  one  of  its 
phases  as  the  state,  in  another  phase  as  the  church,  is  the  idea 
of  a  universal  consciousness  representing  humanity's  striving  and 
humanity's  deepest  aspirations.  The  individual  must,  therefore, 
relate  himself  in  this  life  to  the  institutions  which  are  part  of  his 
life — the  church,  the  state  and  society  at  large — for  the  institu- 
tion is  the  dynamic  thought  of  man  coming  to  some  kind  of  con- 
crete expression.  Now  if  we  think  of  a  formative  idea  in  the 
history  of  the  world  showing  itself  as  it  does,  here  and  there,  in 
the  development  of  every  human  life,  though  on  a  small  scale, 
that  development  of  thought  in  the  human  individual  is  one 
phase  of  its  development,  on  the  other  side,  the  development  of 
this  great  human  idea  on  this  larger  and  more  extensive  scale  in 
the  institutions  of  the  world,  is  another  phase  of  its  development. 
It  is  in  the  bringing  together  of  these  two  manifestations  of 
human  thought  that  the  problem  of  ego  and  alter  can  be  solved, 
for  it  makes  possible  the  development  of  selfhood  in  a  social 
order  that  has  ceased  to  be  inimical  to  self-realization;  for  the 
thought  which  forms  the  individual  personality  is  the  same  in 


The  Individual  and  Society  99 

another  form  of  its  multiplied  and  aggregate  expression  that  we 
find  in  our  great  institutions  and. in  society  at  large.  Thus  the 
two  are  not  separated,  but  are  naturally  brought  together  in  our 
every-day  life.1  To  be  blind  to  the  significance  of  the  time- 
spirit,  i.  e.,  the  spirit  which  is  outside  of  ourselves  and  is  show- 
ing itself  in  the  development  of  our  communal  life;  to  ignore  it 
in  our  purposes  and  calculations,  and  to  say  we  will  blaze  out  a 
trail  for  ourselves  with  the  scorn  of  any  cooperation,  is  folly; 
for  such  a  course  not  only  leads  men  to  live  a  short-sighted  and 
narrow  life,  but  an  immoral  life  as  well. 

We  agree,  therefore,  with  the  trend  of  modern  thought  in  tak- 
ing the  point  of  view,  not  of  the  naturistic  evolutionist  who 
would  empty  man  of  all  spiritual  content  and  selfhood,  nor  the 
view  of  the  individualists  of  the  'iQth  century,  who  repudiating 
all  social  institutions  would  degenerate  into  blind  solipsism,  but 
the  point  of  view  that  sees  in  the  synthesis  of  these  two  great 
factors, — the  individual  and  society, — the  content  of  all  ethical 
values,  and  the  true  point  of  contact  between  the  ego  and  its 
world  of  reality.  Such  a  view  of  the  social  order  that  not  only 
enables  the  ego  to  participate  in  the  totality  of  the  world,  but 
gives  to  it  the  right  to  assert  its  selfhood,  adds  value  and  dig- 
nity to  the  ego  without  loss  to  the  social  order. 


i.  See  The  Ego  and  His  Place  in  the  World,— Shaw,  Bk.  Ill,  sec.  7; 
also  Value  and  Dignity  of  Human  Life, — Shaw,  Part  IV.6,  sec.  46. 


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